This paper reports on Ellis CoseÂ’s investigative study of middle-class African Americans' anger, which he describes as "the rage of a privileged class." His subjects, from famous trial lawyers to college professors to CEOs and business owners, are all part of the middle and upper-middle classes, yet their race holds them at the boundary of these classes. This boundary is a source of great strife among educated African Americans, and this paper examines whether the reasons Cose gives are valid explanations of this rage, or whether the book goes any distance towards explaining the source of this profound - though often hidden - dissatisfaction with the system.
