How to Be: A Guide to Contemporary Living for African Americans

Etiquette is more than knowing which fork to use. Good manners are the rules that let us find our way in today’s rapidly changing maze of lifestyles, customs, and relationships. Anyone who doesn’t know these rules is living and working at a real disadvantage.

In How to Be, noted author and editor Harriette Cole treats manners as a resource for the empowerment of the black community. She offers guidance drawn from the tried-and-true experience and wisdom of African American elders, as well as from European mainstream traditions in many areas of life, including:

-Family—immediate, extended, and blended

-New codes of dating, love, and sex

-Entertaining family, friends, and coworkers in both casual and formal settings

-Workplace issues — from how to resign to what to wear on casual Fridays

-Rites of passage, including weddings and funerals

-Holiday celebrations like Christmas, Kwanzaa, and Juneteenth and much more