Respectability politics created status hierarchies inside the black working class

Evidence

If respectability signified dialogue with oneself and with others, it also signified class and status differentiation between those who exhibited its definitional criteria and those who did not. The politics of respectability, especially as defined by proper gender roles for women, marked differences of social status within the working class itself. The black working class has never been monolithic in its values and cultural style. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 930

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes Evelyn Higginbotham’s broader argument and anticipates critiques of respectability as intra-racial class policing. — connects to: Middle-class respectability politics simultaneously attacked working-class idleness and upper-class hedonism. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 857; The politics of respectability required blacks to police their own behavior against racist stereotype — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 900; Respectability politics mobilized working-class blacks toward racial self-help — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 94 (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Black middle-class respectability stigmatized calypso as lower-class degeneracy #exemplifies (0.85)
• Respectability politics converted menial work into skilled identity rather than merely outward manners #expands (0.83) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 964
• The respectability campaign rhetorically elevated working-class domestic servants as race exemplars #complicates (0.82) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 997
• Respectability politics mobilized working-class blacks toward racial self-help #qualifies (0.80) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 94
• Respectability politics can both empower and imprison a marginalized group #corroborates (0.78) — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 1128
• Black communities can act as autonomous political forces rather than class fractions #complicates (0.75) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2199
• Respectability politics extends beyond Black women to nationalism and bodily self-control #expands (0.74) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 1548
• Respectability politics served as a foundation for overt black political action #expands (0.72) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 1031
• Working-class racism resists analysis under homogeneous conceptions of ideology #complicates (0.70) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 142