Education and Class Divide in the Black Community

Dear Maggie,

I told Ma that you are going to drop out of school. She is furious. She said that you, unlike the rest of your family, don't know how to use your privileged status to the advantage of everyone else. Everyone in town knows that you're much better off than most of us; you live in a huge house, you can read, you can play the piano, you have more time than the rest of us to devote to church programs. She doesn't mean to sound bitter - not at all. She thanks the Lord that there are middle-class blacks. She just expects that middle-class colored people like your family will work to uplift the rest of us. And that's why she's upset with you. You have the opportunity of a college education, but you won't take it! She said that even whites [fearfully] understand the significance of a colored person getting a college education - so she can't fathom why you can't see it the same way.

I told her that you were a wild one, who prioritized fun over everything else. I'm afraid that my comment only infuriated her more. She muttered that it was such a shame that you can enjoy the leisure and fun that your socioeconomic class allows you, while the rest of us sweat and work in some other world distant from your own sheltered one.

Ma spoke so sweetly about Ella, though, after I told her that Ella earned her college degree with honors. She lamented if only I could go to college, since I have what you lack - the motivation and perspective that comes from firsthand experiences with poverty. It's not going to happen, I know - but isn't it pretty to think so?

Your dearest friend,
Maude Solomon