They then use this money they have acquired to boast a lifestyle based upon consumption and status visibility that was promoted during the Reagan administration. The image of the yuppie is however problematic as it is associated with the stratification of American society that allows for white dominance through advantages that are unavailable to blacks and other minorities. Civil rights may have had a boost during the 1960's, but there were still very real issues surrounding race in the 1980's, if not aggravated by Reagan's focus of upper-class whites. Whilst the 1960's pushed for social liberalism and was the age of the hippie, the 1980's reinstated conservatism- "they have replaced confrontation with condominiums" Errol T. Lewis, 1985.
Racism may have become less overt and visible in the 1980's, but its historical significance in institutionalisation had not left. As Robert Hill analysed in 1978 "because of wide acceptance of the belie in the significant economic progress of blacks, many whites have become increasingly resistant to efforts toward racial equality in the areas of education, employment, housing and economic security. Since they do not believe that significant racial barriers exist, many whites feel that equality of opportunity has already been achieved." This ideology was in juxtaposition to the fact that blacks were not given the same levels of education throughout the 1960's when the white yuppies were. Images of the yuppie in culture and media were dominated by ones of the white male.
Image from 1987 film Wall Street
White wealth in the 1980's was symbolised by the yuppie, and the depiction of black impoverishment. Sidney M. Willhelm said in 1986 that "the Reagan administration vigorously and uncompromisingly enforces a "race neutrality" ideology to cloaks its discriminatory policies against blacks." The yuppie is therefore a problematic figure as it only represents a very exclusive socio-economic group that existed in 1980's culture.
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