Our Kind of People by Lawrence Otis Graham

Our Kind of People
Lawrence Otis Graham
448 pages
Published December 22 1999 by Harper Perennial
Rating: 2/5

This book was written to give America the inside scoop of the "Black Elite of America," something that is rarely shown or heard of. The author begins by introducing us to his whole reasoning behind the book. Graham is a self-professed "Black Elite" and was sparked to write this book after meeting with a very successful, wealthy, and influential African American business man who asked how he should go about ensuring his daughters had a "black experience." You see, this man felt his luxury had only provided his daughters with a white existence as they had lived in a Caucasian neighborhood, gone to predominately Caucasian schools, etc and felt that he had not properly balanced his and his daughters life in both worlds: that of the African Americans and that of the Caucasians.And from here the horse race begins.

Graham gives us the origins of the "Black Elite" which I appreciated as it showed that African-Americans of today came from more than just slaves; they also came from free blacks who had never been enslaved, indentured servants, and immigrants who willingly came to the New World. Another thing I found enjoyable from the book was, the "Black Elite checklist." Each chapter was an item on the list and it basically serves as "this is how you know you're a 'black elite.'" For each item of the list Graham explained the historical background and the significance such as Chapter 3 when he discusses the Black Debutante Balls. I won't go too much into detail here as you can read it yourself, so I'll be moving along.

One thing I did seem to notice is that the author provides us with a lot of names that are used repeatedly throughout the book. it just really kept bugging me because I was like, "Do you know anybody else, or is the 'Black Elite' really that freakin' small?!" I don't know it was just something about it. If I had to read about so-in-so one more time I was going to burst! What I really kept wondering while reading this book was, "Is the checklist still relevant?" This book was published in 1999, so, much has changed since then and I personally felt that, if based solely off the "checklist", many African Americans could consider themselves "Black Elite" minus the money. I think it would be really interesting to see Lawrence Graham do a new edition of this book to see how much, if any, has now changed to the "checklist."

 Okay, so now for the second part of this book. For the second part, Graham breaks down the history of the "Black Elite" in several major cities such as Chicago, Atlanta, Washington D.C., etc. Each city gets its own chapter. I really feel like this entire section of the book was uncalled for. After reading the first two cities, I quickly got bored. I soon started asking myself, "Who cares?" Once again it was all the same people. Even in different cities, the people the author interviewed had connections to previous names mentioned in previous cities. I hate to say it but this part of the book made me really dislike it, so much that I even contemplated not finishing it. Well, I didn't exactly not finish it. I just skipped the other cities and went straight to the last chapter: skin color.

 Now this chapter, I felt, deserved a lot more time then it got. To me, it felt like the author was in a rush to wrap things up and did not get the spotlight it deserved. Basically the chapter discusses the taboo of "passing," meaning an African American of fair complexion passing as a Caucasian person and choosing to live as a Caucasian. I just felt like this chapter deserved so much more because: one, elite or poor it is something all African Americans have discussed and/or dealt with in their family and two, it is something that many non-African Americans know nothing about. Overall, the book was just okay to me. Would I read it again? Definitely not. Would I suggest it to a friend? Yes. Although it was just okay, I feel this book is very beneficial to anyone who wants to broaden their mind about a certain group of people and expand their knowledge. After all, this book isn't just for African American people; it's for Our Kind of People.