None of us were the grandchildren of grandparents who passed money or land down to our parents. Even those of us whose parents were part of this shiny black middle class knew those shiny black middle-class parents were one paycheck away from asking grandparents or us for money we didn’t have the week before payday, and two paychecks away from poverty. There was no wealth in our family, you told me more than once. There were only paydays.
