Our Kind of People (Graham)

Book Reviews
A fascinating if unwieldy amalgam of popular history, sociological treatise and memoir....Graham clearly loves and admires the people he is writing about, and this is both the charm of the book and its great failing....Still...[Graham] has made a major contribution both to African-American studies and to the larger American picture.
Andrea Lee - The New York Times Book Review


Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class is the literary equivalent of the nose job Graham obtained so that he could "further buy into the aesthetic biases that many among the black elite hold so dear." Instead of reporting on the foibles of the black upper crust, Graham sucks up to it, providing little more than a breathless list of neighborhoods, vacation spots and social clubs dominated by folks who can pass the 'brown paper bag' test.
Jack White - Time

In this work, Graham, who exposed bias against African Americans in his sharp-tongued account of working at an elite country club (Member of the Club), here focuses on "America's black upper class": a conservative, well-to-do group that dates back to the first black millionaires in the 1870s and whose members are associated with institutions like the Links and the Oak Bluffs area of Martha's Vineyard.
Library Journal


[Graham's] insights into the story of blacks in vacation spots...are fascinating. Nevertheless, the ongoing claustrophobia of privilege can weary a reader. One walks away with the impression that Graham's effort could have been cut in half—and all one would have missed is an extra afternoon of interminable croquet, followed by cucumber sandwiches down by the gazebo.
Kirkus Reviews