African American Community Blasts Magazine Article

In a perverse way, the article in a recent edition of New York magazine suggesting the African American community on Martha’s Vineyard was segregationist, elitist and even perhaps racist, was testament to black achievement.

After all, the young African American author of the article, who goes by the single name Touré, was airing very much the same criticisms that are more usually leveled at the white establishment. Absent a black elite, he could not have done it.

Whether such criticisms are valid is another matter. And the overwhelming view of a large number of Island residents, seasonal and year-round, black and white, is that the piece, published June 21 under the headline Black and White on Martha’s Vineyard, was desperately unfair and wrong.

Thus Abigail McGrath, of Oak Bluffs, drafted a letter of response to the magazine and circulated it among her Island friends for their signatures.

It was quite a letter.

“My family has lived on the Vineyard for seven generations and I don’t recognize MY Vineyard in the article, Black and White on the Vineyard, written by Mr. Touré,” she began, then went on to condemn its “appalling inaccuracies which misrepresent the Island in a divisive way.”

She went on to bet “a free week in my Oak Bluffs house” that if the author were to interview any of the “heavyweight” blacks mentioned in the piece, “not to mention many whites, residents and visitors, each would question the accuracy of this article.”

And indeed this week when the Gazette contacted some of the people mentioned in the article — and others who were not — they did, in the strongest terms.

But first, something of the Touré piece, which so incensed so many.

His article suggested — or to be fair, people quoted in his article suggested — that black Vineyarders had a “self-segregating impulse;” that there were people here who were black, wealthy and racist.

But it was Touré himself who portrayed the Vineyard as a summer meeting place for “scores of what could be called the Only Ones — black professional and social elites who travel in worlds where they’re often the only black person in the room.

“The Only Ones typically break into fields or companies that admit few blacks, move into neighborhoods where few blacks live, and send their kids to mostly white schools. They are not running from their own — they’re chasing after the best they can get. They aren’t assimilationist; they’re ascensionist.”

The article dropped a lot of names and titles, to wit: “from the worlds of academia (like Harvard professors Skip Gates, Charles Ogletree and Lani Guinier), media (NPR correspondent Charlayne Hunter-Gault, former ABC News anchor Carole Simpson), film (directors Spike Lee and Reggie Hudlin), and politics (Valerie Jarrett, who hosted the Obamas in 2007).”

And not only were these people successful, they were here to network. In fact, they were more connected than white folks. What’s more, it suggested they were more exclusionary than Island whites, and that lower-class blacks were more likely to be insulted by other blacks than by whites, if they were “too southern Baptist, too dark-skinned, too street.”

Most controversial of all, it suggested even the President and his wife were not exclusive enough for some. The article included this quote, from an unnamed “Vineyarder who’s part of black high society:”

“Obama is more a man of the people . . . . He doesn’t seem to identify with affluent black people. His wife definitely doesn’t; she is basically a ghetto girl. That’s what she says — I’m just being sociological. She grew up in the same place Jennifer Hudson did. She hasn’t reached out to the social community of Washington, and people are waiting to see what they’ll do about that.”

Abigail McGrath’s letter conceded some truth in the piece, albeit in a generalized way.

There was a certain element of segregation by choice, she wrote.

“The gentiles live in Edgartown, the Jewish population is in Chilmark, the Native Americans are in Aquinnah (Gay Head) and the blacks live in Oak Bluffs,” she wrote.

But the beauty of the place was “that most people who are seasonal visitors or year-round residents have friends of all races and socialize across the board in all activities, enclaves, mainstream and fringe groups.”

That was the essence of most responses: that while the black community, like most people here, tended to be relatively well-educated and well-off, this was a tolerant, integrated and generally unaffected place.

“People started coming here when there was no other place that was hospitable. The concentration of black people in Oak Bluffs is part of the legacy of racism in this country,” said Charlayne Hunter-Gault this week. “But people here have overcome that and they’re enjoying themselves.

“I think it was a hit-and-run piece that was maybe designed to stir controversy. If that was the case, it certainly did. If it was meant to be an accurate reflection of this Island, I don’t think it succeeded.

“Why can’t black people have means? The thing is, I don’t see anybody flaunting that.

“I have all kinds of friends at my house any given night. It’s totally mixed — we have all types regardless of age, race, sex, class. We’ve had parties in this house when we had no electric wiring yet, and it was in the process of reconstruction.

“Sure you may have some snobs, but that’s not my experience.

“Everybody’s just so incensed about this,” she said. “Here is an article that just besmirches our whole paradise — as I call it — and our response, which Abby sent off and which I thought was pretty thoughtful and reasonable, got smooshed into the other comments.”

Judy Davenport’s son was a law school friend of Michelle Obama, and incorrect scuttlebutt for a while suggested the Obamas might stay at their place next month. Mrs. Davenport, whose wealthy and well-connected family summers on the Island, was contacted by the writer.

But none of her words appeared in print, she thinks because they did not suit the tone of the piece.

“We’ve been coming here 35 years, and we have all sorts of friends — political friends, writers, painters, all sorts from all over the country, many of whom we saw only here in the summer,” she said.

Ms. Davenport said it may have been more true in the past that races kept themselves separate.

“Maybe in the 1950s, but not now. You make friends with your neighbors, no matter who they are,” she said.

While she acknowledged the Vineyard was “not a cheap vacation,” she denied that the Island scene was elitist.

A qualifying, if not dissenting voice was that of Suesan Stovall, an artist and Ms. Hunter-Gault’s daughter:

“What I disagreed with in that article,” she said, “is the notion that present day African American society on Martha’s Vineyard comes here to get away from whitey.

“Touré’s view seemed to be that black people with money come here because they can’t enjoy their status in mainstream America because of a glass ceiling or something.

“Now, back when black people first started coming here in the early 1900s, maybe that was more the case. The Island was a sanctuary. That is not so anymore.”

Ms. Stovall said, however, there was a class issue among African American people — “a lot of light-skinned privilege versus dark-skinned exclusion.

“For sure that exists. . . . For a long time I didn’t want to admit that actually it comes down to class. But it does, certainly in financial terms these days.

“There is classism and racism here. It exists all across the board, but I think that is evolving,” Ms. Stovall said.

Elizabeth Gates, daughter of Henry Louis (“Skip”) Gates Jr. and a writer for the Daily Beast, said Touré’s article presented an “archaic, separatist ideology” which no longer applied, if it ever did. “Being rich is not reserved for white people. There is not a small group of black people anymore who are making money.

“A lot of the people Touré interviewed seemed to be wrapped up in that glorified, ‘We’ve slipped through the cracks’ kind of ideology that our parents’ parents had to survive with.

“But it doesn’t exist anymore.”

However she, too, expressed concern about black classism.

“I hate that Jack and Jill Club mentality that some people have,” she said, explaining: “Jack and Jill is essentially a mothers’ club and it is elitist. You have to be voted in, and it’s supposed to be for black families that make over a certain income. It’s basically just another little self-segregation pool, which perpetuates that whole crabs-in-a-barrel, no we’re not going to support each other, paper bag club type of ideology. It’s awful, really awful . . . I hate that our community gets branded like.”

Because, she said, it was far less true of the Island than of many other places.

The final word goes to Touré, who agreed to talk about his article because, he said, he felt bad that people he respected had taken the piece badly.

“The letter [to the magazine from Ms. McGrath, et al], said the article was not representative of what they were all about . . . that I attacked them as parvenus or wannabes.

“I think quite the opposite is true. I take pains to say these people are not running from their own; they’re chasing after the best they can get. They’re not assimilationist — which is the classic word blacks would fling at other blacks, who are trying to get away from their own — but are ascensionist.

“I would ask those people who are upset to point to a word that I wrote that suggests an attack on this group. I see myself as part of this group.

“If people have a problem with the people I quoted, they should perhaps take it up with the people I quoted. I spoke to 25 or 30 people.

“So many people talked about socializing their children around these sorts of Vineyard blacks,” he said.

As for the anonymous “ghetto girl” quote, he repudiated those who suggested it was not genuine. “It’s an absurd suggestion. As if I would make up a quote about Michelle Obama, and as if it would get through the fact-checking at a major magazine. Somebody said that, and I have it on tape.

“And the fact is, black elitism is a problem. But again I say to them: point to a word that suggests I’m attacking these people. I’m not,” he said.

But, of course, that is not the way a lot of folks read it. It seems a lsummer of debate lies ahead for the elite, if not elitist, community on Martha’s Vineyard.

This article appears in July 17, 2009.