Harlem is one of the most famous neighborhoods in the world a historic symbol of both black cultural achievement and of the rigid boundaries separating the rich from the poor. But as this book shows us, Harlem is far more culturally and economically diverse than its caricature suggests: through extensive fieldwork and interviews, John L. Jackson reveals a variety of social networks and class stratifications, and explores how African Americans interpret and perform different class identities in their everyday behavior.
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If sociologist and cultural critic W. E. B. Du Bois proved prophetic about the twentieth century and its color lines, the beginning of the twenty-first century has given rise to divergent pronouncements about the potential of race relations and racial discourse in American society. Older categories of black victims and white victimizers hardly seem up to the task of making social sense out of today s complex racial issues. "Racial Americana "explores new modes of racial theorizing that provide a more nuanced framework for understanding the social facts that underpin race (as belief system, as...