When Keepin' It Real Goes Right

Few scholars would, when writing a sociological work, call a chapter "The 'Ghetto Fabulous.'" Good for John L. Jackson Jr. for knowing better. Jackson tackles "keepin' it real" in a discussion threaded through with anecdote and interviews from the folks way up in Harlem.

Jackson grew up in Brooklyn, attended Columbia and is now an assistant professor of anthropology at Duke. He travels back to Harlem to explore what it means when black people call for other blacks to be sincere or true to themselves. In his exploration of what this might involve, he differentiates this racial sincerity from racial authenticity-something more easily defined, perhaps, by ancestry or even skin color.

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.

I'm still not sure what racial sincerity is, exactly-but after reading Real Black, I've definitely had adventures in it. 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.n

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Real Black: Adventures in Racial SincerityBy John L. Jackson Jr.University of Chicago Press, 288 pages, $20