Buppies

A shorthand term for “black urban professional.” The term buppie is used most commonly by journalists to describe a rather loosely defined economic, social, and cultural group of urban African Americans. Moreover, some African Americans use this term to describe themselves. The term came into broad use in the mid-1980s as a counterpart to the “yuppie” phenomenon. (Yuppies became a popular term in the 1980s, used to describe primarily white young urban professionals.)

Nonetheless, buppie describes more about recent economic trends in African American life than the label yuppie supposes about white Americans. In this sense, a buppie is somewhat different from a yuppie. The latter is a term that indicates the short-lived indulgence of materialism during the 1980s as newly wealthy whites reacted against the idealism of previous decades. Although this description may describe a few buppies, the rise of this group indicates a sustained and continuing social and economic shift among African Americans, in which more and more blacks have come to inhabit the middle and upper economic ranks of American society. In keeping with this trend, buppies are acquisitive, buying material goods such as luxury items that display their success.

More specifically, the term buppie refers to upwardly mobile African Americans in the era after the civil rights movement in the United States. This description indicates a great deal of complexity. Many buppies find themselves competing for jobs and economic prosperity alongside whites in the workplace. Others are entrepreneurs, creating and managing their own businesses. Given their position, buppies seek to preserve something of their heritage and culture as African Americans while embracing economic advancement in the broader economic system of the United States. Because of cultural differences, many buppies find themselves at odds with the character of the business environment in which they work. Some buppies express frustration in their many encounters with whites, who tend to misunderstand them and their culture.

Unlike yuppies, who demonstrated a tendency to be crassly materialistic and totally rejected engagement in social problems, some buppies tend to involve themselves in the social or political arena. However, the terms of this involvement often differ from earlier generations of African Americans. Many buppies imagine themselves and their economic success as a type of racial uplift. According to this logic, buppie success indicates the success of the African American community in general. For this reason, buppies have a different view of the world than those who experienced the civil rights movement or came of age under legal segregation.