To Be Real: Truth and Racial Authenticity in African American Standup Comedy

To Be Real: Truth and Racial Authenticity in African American Standup Comedy examines Black standup comedy over the past decade as a stage for understanding why notions of racial authenticity—in essence, appeals to "realness" and "real Blackness"—emerge as a cultural imperative in African American culture. Ethnographic observations and interviews with Black comedians ground this telling, providing a narrative arc of key historical moments in the new millennium. Readers will understand how a...