Middle-Class Blacks in Britain: A Racial Fraction of a Class Group or a Class Fraction of a Racial Group?

The aims of this book are threefold. First, it aims to develop the argument that race not only plays a significant role in determining the objective class position of Blacks, but also in determining the type of consciousness generated by Blacks in Britain. This is achieved through an investigation of the concept of race and its impact upon Blacks who occupy positions in the objectively defined middle class.

Second, the book aims to highlight the heterogeneity of circumstances amongst Blacks, and more importantly the diverse effects of structural racism as it operates to determine the position of Blacks in both the labour market and the British class structure.

Third, to date, middle-class Blacks remain an anonymous grouping, and consequently theorists and other commentators have tended to develop a composite picture of them as representing ‘sell outs’, ‘token Blacks’, ‘careerists’ or buffers between the state and the remainder of Britain’s Black population. This book examines the validity of such characterisations using empirical material.