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(for alumni of the Ivy League). The average TT seems to be involved in at least two.
    These groups do good for the community. Indirectly. Some of these groups emphasize community service, promoting a scholarship fund, or offering a mentoring program. But actually working with the masses just isn’t done anymore. It takes up time that could be better spent planning that trip to the Inkwell—the section of Martha’s Vineyard where Black people congregate once a year—or getting your daughter ready for Cotillion or your sorority’s annual Debutante Ball. Besides, the problems in the Black community seem intractable—unemployment, drug abuse, educational regression, crime, gangs, AIDS, recidivism, and family disintegration. We just want to get away from them. These groups and events facilitate that exodus in a way that makes us feel like we are not actually “selling out.”
    Like many in The Talented Tenth, we had carved out our own lifestyle, combining the comforts and pleasantries of “White Life” with the traditions of the African American community. That’s what living in Oak Park and being a member of the Harvard Club and Trinity United Church of Christ meant. What it did not mean was spending any time in dilapidated places like the West Side, much less shopping there or having a real exchange with someone like the woman on the other side of the counter at J’s Fresh Meats.
    But there I was, credit card in hand. I didn’t want to embarrass this woman because of our obvious, painful class distinction. I tried to, let’s
say, “blend in.” I changed my tone, infused a little more Ebonics and Southern drawl into my small talk. Basically, I reverted back to how just about everyone in Liberty City talked when I lived there.
    She made adjustments too. I was a guest, like anyone from Oak Park with advanced degrees from the University of Chicago would be, even a White person. I was much more that person than I was a sistah , a Black mother needing some groceries. Unlike during the civil rights era, when Blacks from diverse backgrounds felt as if they were in the same struggle, the only thing that stood out now was the unavoidable, awkward relationship of a poor, uneducated Black woman serving an upper-class, highly educated Black woman—two planets orbiting around each other. “You have a blessed day,” she said, smiling, trying to bridge all that was between us with kindness. I thanked her and smiled back. I headed out the door, climbed back into the truck, and was a little overwhelmed with all that had converged in that stooped store.
    How dare you run a business like this , I thought. Then I remembered those babies on the floor, and my heart broke.
    The J’s Fresh Meats lady was the stereotype we see caricatured in the news and in the movies, the one we whisper about when we see her in the Black restaurants in gentrifying areas of Chicago’s Hyde Park, or the one we disdain when she dares to make her way to the malls, parks, and restaurants of our exclusive suburb.
    We were wrong to judge her, but the certainty of our assessment assuaged our guilt. That was one of the perks of being in the Black bourgeoisie: We could utter the most prejudiced remarks about people like her—comments we would denigrate White folks for saying—because we are Black. When White folks look at her with pity or hate, they do so without knowing who she is or why her life has ended up this way. But we know. Many of us come from backgrounds similar to hers, and we have cousins and childhood friends like her. That is the difference.
    But my education in urban food shopping was just beginning.
    Our next stop was Mario’s Butcher Shop, a few forlorn blocks away from J’s. “We’re the heart and soul of the West Side,” claimed the big sign out front. It looked like an ideal place for the adventure portion of
the experiment. More of a full-service