Bougie Like Me

By Jack E. White

In black slang, being "bougie," derived from bourgeois, means being socially pretentious. It fits Lawrence Otis Graham to a tee. His book, Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class (HarperCollins; 418 pages; $25), is the literary equivalent of the nose job Graham obtained so that he could "further buy into the aesthetic biases [toward light complexions, straight hair and sharp features] that many among the black elite hold so dear." In other words, to brownnose the black blue bloods.

A Harvard-educated lawyer, Graham, 37, gained notoriety seven years ago by working as a busboy at a white country club and exposing the prejudices of its members in New York magazine. Here, instead of reporting on the foibles of the black upper crust, Graham sucks up to it, providing little more than a breathless list of neighborhoods, vacation spots and social clubs dominated by folks who can pass the "brown paper bag" test, meaning that their complexion is lighter than a grocery bag. His criteria for including an institution in the elite class are that he either belongs to it or would like to.

How anachronistic. Since the civil rights movement, education and economic success have increasingly trumped light skin and the right pedigree as black status symbols. Graham shows how easily ambitious outsiders can now join the black upper class. He boasts that he belongs to the Boule, a group of "the most accomplished, affluent and influential black men" in the nation. If the Boule were really all that exclusive, a social climber like him would never have got in.

--By Jack E. White