“What distinguishes this study is Jackson's interest in "folk amalgamations of race and behavior”…specific behaviors, activities and associations—a real-life picture of how people in a certain time and place define themselves and each other.”
- The Washington Post

"Neatly and expertly weaving theory with analysis through these interviews, Jackson discovers that both identities built around race and class are far less monolithic than even Harlem residents believe.... [T]he original and exceptionally perceptive analysis Jackson provides about race and class in U.S. culture will interest anyone trying to think them through."             - Publishers Weekly

“…Jackson convincingly makes the case that precisely because race and class can be ‘done to people’, his behavioral model is ‘the only racial grounding on which hierarchical notions of race in the U.S. can ultimately stand.’ His combination of carefully chosen and deftly applied evidence and novel methods of analysis makes this difficult to dispute.”
– Times Literary Supplement

"Jackson's Harlemworld is a place where race and class are complicated and contradictory, and the social realities portrayed in this book challenge easy and exclusionary social science categories." - Library Journal

"This is a compelling look at contemporary black reality in the post-civil rights era.”
– Booklist

“…Harlemworld is a significant contribution to African-American studies and anthropology. Historians who fail to engage Jackson’s work will miss important insights into African Americans’ consciousness of race and class.”  
– The Journal of American History


Praise for Real Black: Adventures in Racial

Sincerity

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"Billed as ‘part conspiracy theory, part rant, part novelistic storytelling, part autoethnography,’ Jackson's book provides discerning readers with a provocative analysis of contemporary black subcultures: middle class blacks in a gentrifying Harlem who are split between a social justice-minded old guard and a neo-capitalistic new guard, conspiracy theorists, Black Hebrew Israelites of Worldwide Truthful Understanding and hip hop artists as exemplified by Mos Def...The author’s powers of observation are indisputable." - Publishers Weekly

"Jackson's talent for making the wry personal aside without diminishing the seriousness of his work is a pleasure to read…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." – NY Press

“John Jackson’s brilliant excursion in search of racial sincerity is, as the title implies, a true adventure. It is a fast-paced and engaging as a novel, witty, sympathetic and lyrical. …This book is a splendid study of what it means to be ‘real’—and not just with respect to race."          – Patricia J. Williams, author of The Alchemy of Race and Rights

“John Jackson’s book is a ‘real’ original. 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, author of The Vulnerable Observer

John L. Jackson, Jr. is the Richard Perry University Professor of Communication and Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania.

Harlemworld: Doing Race and Class in Contemporary Black America

Real Black: Adventures in Racial Sincerity

Racial Americana