ABSTRACT
“Race” is as invisible in most discussions of middle-class formation in Britain as the middle classes are invisible in most discussions of the class position of ethnic minorities. However, we do not take this as a reason for avoiding analysis of race and middle-class formation. On the contrary, we interpret the common assumption that black people are nothing to do with the middle classes as a result of a past process of class formation that was intrinsically built on race: the middle class or classes, whatever else they might be, were in fact and theory indubitably white.
