Key & Peele

Remember that Key & Peele Harry Potter video we watched in class a while back? I've found some more where those came from, although I think they deal with culture a bit more than class. First up:

 

 We did spend time talking about the black middle class, and the cultural elements that make it distinct from other classes. The main point was that blacks in America have a shared cultural history and ancestry, but as time progressed — specifically after the Civil Rights Movement — more were able to achieve the education and income necessary to reach the middle class. However, there are still many blacks that have not reached this level of class, and it is this disparity that creates differences in the stratification of the black community, and by extension black culture.

Key and Peele are fun to watch because they juxtapose both elements of black culture that we would stereotypically associate as "black" with other behaviors that we would not, as well as interaction across racial lines, hence the humor. Case in point, the video above: Peele plays President Obama, and greets all of the blacks he meets with gestures of familiarity (hugs, high fives, what you'd expect from a stereotypical "black greeting" — he even references a Drake song), but greets all whites (even a baby) with a handshake and a "Nice to meet you." We find the disparity humorous, but it does bring to light the two opposing pulls those in the black middle class experience: the need to fit in with their black peers, and the desire (in some cases) to assimilate themselves into the culture of the white-majority middle class they have found themselves in (as the video we saw in class about Jack and Jill pointed out). The following video by Key & Peele makes a similar point: