 Africans may have ultimately moved off of the plantation, but many continue to seek their place in the big house. 
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In his book, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400 – 1800, author John Thornton confirms the long-held anecdotal presumption that enslaved Africans who worked in the plantation "big house" had a better quality of life than those who worked in the fields. By Mark P. Fancher
Thornton states:
"The contrast between the life of a domestic servant, residing in the owner's house, perhaps well dressed and not necessarily overworked, and that of the plantation slaves and field hands is well illustrated by the case of two Brazilian domestics, Ines and Juliana. These two pampered slaves, raised among the Europeans and sharing in their lives, testified against their master, Paulo Affonso, to the Inquisition of Bahia in 1613-14, and in reprisal, their master ordered them transferred as field hands to his sugar estate at Itapianga. There, a short time later they were both dead, victims of ‘many whippings and bad life and labour."
It is likely that as a consequence of these and comparable incidents, many enslaved Africans who toiled and suffered in the fields recognized their limited life options, and set their sights on a place on the master's domestic staff. If the fate of Sisters Ines and Juliana is any indication, disloyalty, insolence and recalcitrance were not qualities that were tolerated in a house slave, and a slave could win a coveted position in the big house only if he or she could assure the master that there would be no efforts to slip poison into the slave owner's food, or kill him as he slept. However, masters had no guarantee of docility. In his book Runaway Slaves, distinguished historian John Hope Franklin observed:
"Even slaves who were thought to be mild mannered and obedient sometimes reached a breaking point. Having never reacted violently, the house servant of a Louisiana woman ‘returned the blow' as she was being physically chastised by her owner, threw her mistress to the ground, and ‘beat her unmercifully, on the head and face.' The white woman's face swelled up and turned black. ‘I could not have known her, by seeing her,' a visitor at the plantation said a few weeks later, ‘poor little woman is confined to bed yet' and remains ‘dangerously ill.'"
Thus, a house slave - or an African who aspired to become a house slave - was faced with the choice of either pleasing the master at all costs in order to preserve a relatively privileged position, or, resolve that even if there were benefits to living under the master's roof, they were not worth losing the little bit of dignity and self-respect that even a slave might have if he or she was willing to fight for them. Africans may have ultimately moved off of the plantation, but many continue to seek their place in the big house. Modern big houses may be executive positions in major corporations - or even entry level jobs. A big house might be tenure on a university faculty, or a partnership in a major law firm.
The shared characteristic of all of these "big houses" is that in some way, shape or form, the aspirant must gain favour with gatekeepers. To accomplish this, Africans must frequently suppress or conceal much about themselves that connects them to their culture. Speech patterns and slang used at home give way to "corporation speak." Otherwise natural hair is relaxed. Jokes told in the board room that aren't funny to most Africans are laughed at anyway. A brother who might normally prefer to spend Saturday afternoon shooting hoops will grudgingly find himself on the golf course with his white co-workers. Barack Obama's efforts to enter the biggest of big houses in American politics has allowed us to see in the clearest way possible that the price of access is doing whatever it takes to make white people like you.
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