Basic Black: Home Training for Modern Times

Some call it polite behavior,or good manners.  Others call it proper breeding, but to most African  Americans its simply called "home training."  Now in Basic Black, authors  Karen Grigsby Bates and Karen E. Hudson offer a  modern guide for gracious  living.

Contrary to the more traditional etiquette books  that most African Americans may find stodgy,  off-putting, and culturally alien, Basic  Black is for real people who live  real lives--and addresses many of the  issues of a growing black middle class who want to  live riche without seeming  noveau. Straightforward,  user-friendly and illustrated with line drawings,  Basic Black includes all the  information any well-mannered person would want to know  about the social rites of passage (marriage, birth,  christening, death), the new corporate workplace  (standard work issues and the more delicate issue  of race and its impact in an integrated  workplace), various occasions (having guests or being a  guest at one's summer home, etc.), and everyday  rules and rituals that make living in hectic times a  little easier.

For singles and  families alike, Basic Black  takes the mystery out of conventional etiquette and  will arm the reader with the ability to be  comfortable and confident in just about any situation.

KAREN GRIGSBY BATES , a contributing columnist for the op-ed pages of the Los Angeles Times, has written for Vogue, The New York Times, Quarterly Black Review of Books, Essence, Emerge, and other publications. Her commentaries frequently appear on National Public Radio’s "All Things Considered." KAREN E. HUDSON is the author of Paul R. Williams, Architect: A Legacy of Style, a biography of her maternal grandfather, and The Will and the Way: Paul R. Williams, Architect, a biography for young people. They both live in Los Angeles.


From the Trade Paperback edition.