African Americans were playing golf long before Tiger Woods was born.
The critical mass of black achievement and prosperity in Prince George’s didn’t just happen. The county was a logical destination for middle-class black families who were ready to abandon the city—it was the least-developed close-in county with the most-affordable land. But there was no compelling reason for those Mainstream families to clump together other than preference. Many later arrivals settled in Prince George’s not because that was where they could buy the biggest and best house for the least money but because they wanted to participate in the project of creating a black community like none other in the nation.
To be part of this upper-Mainstream enclave, they were willing to make compromises and sacrifices. The Prince George’s schools are better than those in the District of Columbia (which isn’t saying much) but not nearly as highly regarded as those in other Washington suburbs. Parts of the county, particularly those near the D.C. line, are suffering “spillover dysfunction” as gentrification pushes poor people out of the city proper; towns like Capitol Heights are plagued by drug dealing and crime. County government has seen an embarrassing series of corruption scandals, and the county police force has a reputation for shooting first and asking questions later, if at all. Top-of-the-line retailers like Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Neiman Marcus have bypassed the county in favor of other Washington-area jurisdictions with similar income figures, as have celebrity-chef restaurants and other luxury-class amenities. Prince George’s residents often complain of being overlooked and undervalued, and they often suspect that these slights are not a matter of economics but of race.
And that is one important regard in which the Mainstream black experience differs from that of other middle-class Americans: Despite all the progress that’s been made, there’s still a nagging sense of being looked down upon, of being judged, of being disrespected. What keeps this difference alive is that these suspicions aren’t always paranoia. They’re not always justified, either, but there’s enough reality behind them to keep alive a sense of separate but not-quite equal—enough to make many people seek safety, acceptance, and solidarity in numbers.
* * *
Prince George’s is home to distinguished black scholars, professionals, athletes, and other pillars of respectable society. It is also home to the best-selling author who writes under the pseudonym Zane. This is not to suggest that there is anything untoward or dishonorable about Zane’s success—she’s one of the most prolific and popular African American writers working today—but simply to note that it’s not the kind of achievement often celebrated in church or the classroom. Her niche is steamy, explicit, erotic fiction aimed at black female readers, and books such as
Addicted, The Sex Chronicles: Shattering the Myth
, and
The Sex Chronicles 2: Gettin’ Buck Wild
have made her a star in the publishing world. Think of her work as romance fiction in which the characters are black, anatomically correct, conscious of their sexual needs, and both diligent and imaginative at fulfilling them. Euphemisms like “throbbing manhood” are replaced by simpler, less ambiguous terms.
I mention Zane not so much because of her books but because of her readers. Much has been written about the decline of the two-parent household among African Americans. The focus has been mostly on the Abandoned—young single mothers, babies having babies. But this trend is also a Mainstream phenomenon. Yale University researchers have found that highly educated black women are especially likely to be unmarried and independent, and that they are increasingly unlikely to find black husbands of comparable accomplishment—black women pursuing postgraduate studies outnumber black men by almost two to one.
The critical mass of black achievement and prosperity in Prince George’s didn’t just happen. The county was a logical destination for middle-class black families who were ready to abandon the city—it was the least-developed close-in county with the most-affordable land. But there was no compelling reason for those Mainstream families to clump together other than preference. Many later arrivals settled in Prince George’s not because that was where they could buy the biggest and best house for the least money but because they wanted to participate in the project of creating a black community like none other in the nation.
To be part of this upper-Mainstream enclave, they were willing to make compromises and sacrifices. The Prince George’s schools are better than those in the District of Columbia (which isn’t saying much) but not nearly as highly regarded as those in other Washington suburbs. Parts of the county, particularly those near the D.C. line, are suffering “spillover dysfunction” as gentrification pushes poor people out of the city proper; towns like Capitol Heights are plagued by drug dealing and crime. County government has seen an embarrassing series of corruption scandals, and the county police force has a reputation for shooting first and asking questions later, if at all. Top-of-the-line retailers like Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Neiman Marcus have bypassed the county in favor of other Washington-area jurisdictions with similar income figures, as have celebrity-chef restaurants and other luxury-class amenities. Prince George’s residents often complain of being overlooked and undervalued, and they often suspect that these slights are not a matter of economics but of race.
And that is one important regard in which the Mainstream black experience differs from that of other middle-class Americans: Despite all the progress that’s been made, there’s still a nagging sense of being looked down upon, of being judged, of being disrespected. What keeps this difference alive is that these suspicions aren’t always paranoia. They’re not always justified, either, but there’s enough reality behind them to keep alive a sense of separate but not-quite equal—enough to make many people seek safety, acceptance, and solidarity in numbers.
* * *
Prince George’s is home to distinguished black scholars, professionals, athletes, and other pillars of respectable society. It is also home to the best-selling author who writes under the pseudonym Zane. This is not to suggest that there is anything untoward or dishonorable about Zane’s success—she’s one of the most prolific and popular African American writers working today—but simply to note that it’s not the kind of achievement often celebrated in church or the classroom. Her niche is steamy, explicit, erotic fiction aimed at black female readers, and books such as
Addicted, The Sex Chronicles: Shattering the Myth
, and
The Sex Chronicles 2: Gettin’ Buck Wild
have made her a star in the publishing world. Think of her work as romance fiction in which the characters are black, anatomically correct, conscious of their sexual needs, and both diligent and imaginative at fulfilling them. Euphemisms like “throbbing manhood” are replaced by simpler, less ambiguous terms.
I mention Zane not so much because of her books but because of her readers. Much has been written about the decline of the two-parent household among African Americans. The focus has been mostly on the Abandoned—young single mothers, babies having babies. But this trend is also a Mainstream phenomenon. Yale University researchers have found that highly educated black women are especially likely to be unmarried and independent, and that they are increasingly unlikely to find black husbands of comparable accomplishment—black women pursuing postgraduate studies outnumber black men by almost two to one.
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