Real Black
Adventures in Racial Sincerity
Jackson argues that authenticity caricatures identity as something imposed on people, imprisoning them within stereotypes: an African American high school student who excels in the classroom, for instance, might be dismissed as "acting white." On the other hand, sincerity, as Jackson defines it, imagines authenticity as an incomplete measuring stick, an analytical model that attempts to deny people agency in their search for identity.
Drawing on more than ten years of ethnographic research in and around New York City, Jackson offers a kaleidoscope of subjects and stories that directly and indirectly address how race is negotiated in today's world—including tales of book-vending numerologists, urban conspiracy theorists, corrupt police officers, mixed-race neo-Nazis, and gospel choirs forbidden to catch the Holy Ghost. Jackson records and retells their interconnected sagas, all the while attempting to reconcile these stories with his own crisis of identity and authority as an anthropologist terrified by fieldwork. Finding ethnographic significance where mere mortals see only bricks and mortar, his invented alter ego Anthroman takes to the streets, showing how race is defined and debated, imposed and confounded every single day.
“John Jackson’s brilliant excursion in search of ‘racial sincerity’ is, as the title implies, a true adventure. It is as fast-paced and engaging as a novel, witty, sympathetic, and lyrical. Tweaking the dilemma of the anthropologist’s gaze, he takes his field notebook into the heart of Harlem as ‘Anthroman’—and is received as part friend and long-term resident, part super-educated superhero, part comic book. This book is a splendid and fascinating study of what it means to be ‘real’—and not just when it comes to race.”--Patricia J. Williams, Columbia Law School
“John Jackson’s book is a 'real' original. As a project that emerges directly from the 1980s and 1990s 'crisis of representation' in cultural anthropology, it engages with the aftermath of the crisis and the search for new ways of doing ethnography in the 21st century, and offers itself as one model for this uncertain ethnographic practice, in which the doing of ethnography is inseparable from the reflection on the process while it’s taking place. I thank Jackson for 'Anthroman' and the many other fabulous personas he introduces with such charm and tongue-in-cheek humor, which are so badly needed in anthropology. The invocation of anthropological precursors, especially Zora Neale Hurston and John Gwaltney, shows that Jackson never forgets 'where he comes from' in terms of anthropological history. At the same time, he’s able to respectfully acknowledge the classics while staying rooted in the present and going deep to speak new and necessary truths. His mix of creativity and chutzpah is just right and gives me hope that ethnography still has much to offer as a genre and a way of being in the world.”--Ruth Behar, University of Michigan
During his ten-year exploration of the topic, Jackson spent time with everyone from black numerologists ('Polygamy! That's what we need as a people. But you can't get most of these brainwashed black women out here to listen to that.') to Seventh-Day Adventists ('We just can't be bringing all that bup, bup, bup into God's house.… This here ain't no nightclub to be wiggling, wiggling your bamsy'). He doesn't flinch at reporting words that might make less courageous scholars cringe. A longtime member of the Worldwide Truthful Understand Black Hebrew Israelites tells Jackson all about white conspiracies to poison blacks by targeting 'malt liquor and shit. If motherfuckers wanted to wipe us the fuck out, which you know they do, they know to hit us with the fried chicken and the fuckin' alcohol.'
Another WTU member 'keeps going back to A. Ralph Epperson's book The New World Order, one of his favorites,' and, Jackson adds, 'mine too, especially with chapter headings like 'Marx, Satanist'.' Not only can Jackson quote these antagonistic accusations, he can also effortlessly dismiss them as loony without sounding condescending. In fact, he seems to clearly enjoy, appreciate and respect all of his subjects, who themselves don't mind if he disagrees with them.
Jackson's talent for making the wry personal aside without diminishing the seriousness of his work is a pleasure to read. 'This is the Brooklyn I know best,' he writes, 'where and when I first picked up that undoubtedly annoying (to some) habit of singing myself into contemporary pop tunes: 'You Remind John of his Jeep…something like John's bank account,' a habit I copied from a local weed dealer, who could effortlessly fit his first name into the chorus of just about any song ever recorded.'
In fact, a lot of the best of Real Black reads like this. Teenage Shanita tells Jackson, 'A friend of mine…did a survey and found that every black person knows at least one person from the neighborhood where they grew up who had a big butt. And that usually the person was named Tyrone. And I was like, 'Oh shit, there was a boy who lived in 9308, and he sure did have a huge butt—like a woman's.'' This insight definitely isn't the core of the book's analysis, but it gets you into the characters that are its subjects and makes you feel almost as if you know them—something quite rare in an academic work. . . . Jackson relates to his subjects so that they unabashedly talk to him about their lives. Because Jackson respects and enjoys Harlemites, in his telling a watermelon-seller and a gospel singer both read like people, not types—which is what makes Real Black the real thing."
2. Real Harlemites
3. Real Bodies
4. Real Jews
5. Real Publics
6. Real Natives
7. Real Emcees
8. Real Names
9. Real Loves
Notes
Index
Anthropology: Cultural and Social Anthropology
Sociology: Race, Ethnic, and Minority Relations | Theory and Sociology of Knowledge | Urban and Rural Sociology
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