Synopses & Reviews
New York's urban neighborhoods are full of young would-be emcees who aspire to "keep it real" and restaurants like Sylvia's famous soul food eatery that offer a taste of "authentic" black culture. In these and other venues, authenticity is considered the best way to distinguish the real from the phony, the genuine from the fake. But in
Real Black, John L. Jackson Jr. proposes a new model for thinking about these issuesand#8212;
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.and#160;
Drawing on more than ten years of ethnographic research in and around New York City, Jackson offers a kaleidoscope of subjects and stories that directlyand#160; and indirectly address how race is negotiated in today's worldand#8212;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.
Review
andldquo;McCuneandrsquo;s
Sexual Discretion is an exciting, timely, and important study that blasts the now encrusted mythologies about the so-called and#39;down low,and#39; advancing our understanding of the mass mediation and lived experiences of sexually nonconforming African American men while also stretching and challenging ethnographic methodology and racial theories of sexuality. The book explores an impressive range of social venues andndash; from the
Oprah TV show to the inner workings of a popular Chicago nightclub; from online chat rooms to the sexual contests occurring across black literary history. As McCune tracks how African American men adopt, resist, and disavow the DL as a meaningful sexual identity, he handles these different sites with analytical rigor, deftness, and sensitivity andndash; important given the constant barrage of misinformation fueling the DL controversy. This is a must-read for anyone interested in getting a handle on the complex, fast-changing sexual and racial politics of contemporary U.S. society.andrdquo;
and#160;
Review
and#8220;Sexual Discretion contributes to a powerful and emerging effort to rethink and#8216;the down lowand#8217; as a way to make sense of black masculinity and the public threat it ostensibly represents. McCuneand#8217;s ambitious argument provides a critical and#8216;architextureand#8217; for explaining how the DL is constituted along various mass-mediated trajectories, helping readers to consider, more critically, the ways in which we continually reproduce essentialist/counter-productive notions of race, gender, sexuality and their inextricable linkages. Part of what makes Sexual Discretion so interesting is its effort to keep traditional participant-observation in productive tension with textual, discursive, literary, and media analyses. The bookand#8217;s radical investment in mixed qualitative methods is extremely effective. Moreover, McCune's discussion of and#8216;The Gateand#8217; reads as a powerful ethnographic portrait of Chicago night-life that represents a wonderful new addition to canonical sociological and anthropological forays into that famous city. This is an excellent book that works in the classroom and far beyond it.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;McCuneand#8217;s Sexual Discretionand#160;is a brilliant study of discrete race, gender, and queer, sexual politics. McCuneand#8217;s exceptionally probing and original account of the down low makes this work both unique and essential reading. Sexual Discretion enriches African American studies and gender studies with an exquisite excavation and finely tuned analysis of multi-layered representations and performances of black masculinity.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Sexual Discretion is the first scholarly treatment of straight-passing black men sleeping with other men. McCune's provocative book is an exposand#233; not of the sexual practices that have become part of contemporary discourses about black male sexual life but of the will to truth that continues to haunt sexuality in general. This must-read book is a welcome addition to the evolving field of black queer studies.and#8221;
Review
andldquo;Profound. . . . The textsandrsquo; appeal goes beyond mere intellectual engagement whereas McCune delivers a cultural analysis that can be easily consumed by the general public.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Academic yet accessible, McCune takes to task the mediaandrsquo;s contemporary discourse on the andlsquo;down lowandrsquo; by examining the issue through interviews and surveys of 60 DL men, the mediaandrsquo;s fascination and handling of the subject, and a look at the subject in the context of the andlsquo;passingandrsquo; literature.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;In this superlative study, McCune addresses the concept of the andlsquo;down lowandrsquo; in a sophisticated manner that transcends any of the popular literature on the subject.andnbsp;A combination of ethnographic study, media analysis, and theoretical work, the book challenges both the media hysteria regarding the down low and what this concept actually is. . . . Sexual Discretion is a must read for those working in the fields of sexuality, race, and gender studies. One hopes that McCune will continue to revise his research in this rapidly changing culture. Highly recommended.andrdquo;
Synopsis
New Yorkand#8217;s urban neighborhoods are full of young would-be emcees who aspire to and#8220;keep it realand#8221; and restaurants like Sylviaand#8217;s famous soul food eatery that offer a taste of and#8220;authenticand#8221; black culture. In these and other venues, authenticity is considered the best way to distinguish the real from the phony, the genuine from the fake. But in
Real Black, John L. Jackson Jr. proposes a new model for thinking about these issuesand#8212;
racial sincerity.
Jackson argues that authenticity caricatures identity as something imposed on people, imprisoning them within stereotypesand#8212;turning them into racial objects and inanimate things, instead of living, breathing human beings. Contending that such assumptions deny people agencyand#8212;not to mention humanityand#8212;in their search for identity, Jackson counterposes sincerity, an internal and more productive analytical model for thinking about race.
Moving in and around Harlem and Brooklyn, Jackson offers a kaleidoscope of subjects and stories that directlyand#160;and indirectly address how race is negotiated in todayand#8217;s worldand#8212;including tales of name-changing hip-hop emcees, book-vending numerologists, urban conspiracy theorists, corrupt police officers, mixed-race neo-Nazis, and high-school gospel choirs forbidden to catch the Holy Ghost. Enlisting and#8220;Anthroman,and#8221; his cape-crusading critical alter ego, Jackson records and retells these interconnected sagas in virtuosic detail and, in the process, shows us how race is defined and debated, imposed and confounded every single day.
Synopsis
African American men who have sex with men while maintaining a heterosexual lifestyle in public are attracting increasing interest from both the general media and scholars. Commonly referred to as and#147;down-lowand#8221; or and#147;DLand#8221; men, many continue to have relationships with girlfriends and wives who remain unaware of their same-sex desires, and in much of the media, DL men have been portrayed as carriers of HIV who spread the virus to black women.and#160;
Sexual Discretionand#160;explores the DL phenomenon, offering refreshingly innovative analysis of the significance of media, space, and ideals of black masculinity in understanding down low communities.
Inand#160;Sexual Discretion, Jeffrey Q. McCune Jr. provides the first in-depth examination of how the social expectations of black masculinity intersect and complicate expressions of same-sex affection and desire. Within these underground DL communities, men arenand#8217;t as highly policedand#151;and thus are able to maintain their public roles as and#147;properly masculine.and#8221; McCune draws from sources that range from RandB singer R. Kellyand#8217;s epic hip-hopera series Trapped in the Closet to Oprah's high-profile exposand#233; on DL subculture; and from E. Lynn Harrisand#8217;s contemporary sexual passing novels to McCuneand#8217;s own interviews and ethnography in nightclubs and online chat rooms.and#160;Sexual Discretionand#160;details the causes, pressures, and negotiations driving men who rarely disclose their intimate secrets.
Synopsis
In
Stigma and Culture, J. Lorand Matory provocatively shows how ethnic identification in the United Statesandmdash;and around the globeandmdash;is a competitive and hierarchical process in which populations, especially of historically stigmatized races, seek status and income by dishonoring other stigmatized populations. And there is no better place to see this than among the African American elite in academia, where he explores the emergent ethnic identities of African and Caribbean immigrants and transmigrants, Gullah/Geechees, Louisiana Creoles, and even Native Americans of partly African ancestry. and#160;
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
Matory describes the competitive process that hierarchically structures their self-definition as ethnic groups and the similar process by which middle-class African Americans seek distinction from their impoverished compatriots. Drawing on research at universities such as Howard, Harvard, and Duke and among their alumni networks, he details how university lifeandmdash;while facilitating individual upward mobility, touting human equality, and regaling cultural diversityandmdash;also perpetuates the cultural standards that historically justified the dominance of some groups over others. Combining his ethnographic findings with classic theoretical insights from Frantz Fanon, Fredrik Barth, Erving Goffman, Pierre Bourdieu and othersandmdash;alongside stories from his own life in academiaandmdash;Matory sketches the university as an institution that, particularly through the anthropological vocabulary of culture, encourages the stigmatized to stratify their own.and#160;
Synopsis
Stigma and Culture by J. Lorand Matory is a courageous auto-ethnographic examination of the stigma attached to color. The work is a major contribution to a new scholarly genre, a form of anthropological theory-building in memoir form.and#160; Its varied gestures include: paeans to past mentors; rich recollections of childhood; ethnographic analyses of various cultural institutions, especially Howard University; re-conceptualizations of Caribbean/African significances vis-and#224;-vis African Americans in the United States, and more. Such a wide-ranging effort is precisely what recommends this bookand#151;and what makes it like few other books in Anthropology or Africana Studies.and#160; Matory argues that several ironies highlight class-based (seemingly post-racial) social formations while also reinforcing racialization and challenging such racial logics from within. He shows how educational institutions are spaces for the paradoxical production of both elitist/post-ethnic class identities and for the fostering of would-be ethnic particularity and differenceand#151;all at the same time. Providing a nuanced window into variously situated and#147;Blackand#8221; groups in the United States (including the seemingly exotic and#147;little racesand#8221; or and#147;tri-racial isolatesand#8221; such as Louisiana Creoles and the oft-discussed Gullah/Geechee), this book argues that the longstanding scholarly assumption about social isolation as a causal mechanism for the cultural legitimacy of such groups is absolutely wrong. Instead, Matory shows that all of these groups are quite decidedly produced in and through contact with their ostensible others. Ethnic purities and particularities are the byproducts of anxieties and efforts birthed from the contact that such purities are meant to deny. This is one of the bookand#8217;s most powerful interventions, and Matory provides compelling arguments for how so many get this wrong. Ultimately Stigma and Culture explains not just the continuing significance of race and ethnicity as seen in various American contexts, but also makes the case for how new and old ethnic differences are enabled and produced in the contemporary moment.
About the Author
J. Lorand Matory is the Lawrence Richardson Professor of Cultural Anthropology and director of the Center for African and American Research at Duke University. He is the author of two award-winning books, Sex and the Empire That Is No More and Black Atlantic Religion.and#160;
Table of Contents
Foreword
Introduction
1 Three Fathers: How Shall I See You through My Tears?
2 The University in Black, White, and Ambivalence: The Hidden Curriculum
3 Islands Are Not Isolated: Schools, Scholars, and the Political Economy of Gullah/Geechee Ethnicity
4 A Complexion or a Culture? Debate as Identity among African-Descended Indians and Louisiana Creoles of Color
5 Islands of the Mind: The Mythical Anthropology of the Caribbean
6 Heaven and Hell: American Africans and the Image of Home
Conclusion: andldquo;Through a Glass, Darklyandrdquo;
Acknowledgments
Notes
References
Index