grist for the mill
A not-so-secret research cacheMonday, August 11, 2003
Guardian Unlimited Books | By genre | The biggest brother: interview with Henry Louis Gates, black America's foremost intellectual
"'My TV series is really about that very dilemma. What I call the black cultural nationalist imaginary - the belief that we are all united because we are black and descended from slaves and have a common enemy called 'whitey' - no longer applies. It's not white versus black any more, it's haves versus have-nots. Unless the black middle-classes unite to promote the interests of the black underclass, tension between them is inevitable. What we, the black middle class have to do, is think of a strategy to avert that.' He does not, though, enlighten me as to what that strategy might be."
"'My TV series is really about that very dilemma. What I call the black cultural nationalist imaginary - the belief that we are all united because we are black and descended from slaves and have a common enemy called 'whitey' - no longer applies. It's not white versus black any more, it's haves versus have-nots. Unless the black middle-classes unite to promote the interests of the black underclass, tension between them is inevitable. What we, the black middle class have to do, is think of a strategy to avert that.' He does not, though, enlighten me as to what that strategy might be."
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