Black, White, Other

The New York Times lauded the book as "important...an example of how we can talk about race with feeling, humor, and dignity." The Buffalo News said that the "pages seethe with a tapestry of life....No book is more likely to force a reader to confront his beliefs about race than this one." Numerous readers responded that they had waited their whole lives for this book.

The first book ever to explore the lives of adult children of black-white unions, Black, White, Other is for the millions of biracial Americans, and for everyone who is interested in the subject of race and the prospects for achieving true pluraism in America.

It is a series of interviews with 70+ black/white biracial people of a great array of age, gender, and life experience.

Although the subject mater, 'race' is often genralised, the people in this book are all approached as individuals in every way. With very different lives,personalities and opinions.

For those of you that are of mixed race, you will find this book very comforting, there are many people that understand you. For those that aren't in our situation, don't be afraid to sit down listen to these voices, embrace the lesson and let it manifest in your life.


Excellent research and interesting individual stories!!   July 6, 1999
 12 out of 12 found this review helpful

Funderburg does an excellent job of finding biracial people and asking questions that help them to explain their understanding of race and how it was formulated. My husband and I plan to have children and I have reseacher biracial children and identity for the past two years. Black, White,Other helped to answer a lot of the questions that we have had and I have also share this information with other mixed couples. As licensed therapists this information will be passed on and used to help other biracial people and their parents through tough times. Some of the stories were sad and some made me mad because of the way the children were treated but I found this to be very helpful expecially with clients because life is not always happy-go-lucky Funderburg does an excellent job of saying this though real people's lives. It is an easy read.


Very enlightening look at bi-raciality   July 7, 1998
 1 out of 7 found this review helpful

I read this book about 3 years ago and think it is a very good look at what bi-racial African/Americans go through. At first, I didn't understand the turmoil and angst one goes through who is bi-racial. The bir-racial people I always knew classified themselves as black and most of them did not appear to have a problem with that. Most of them had white mothers who raised them but they didn't consider themselves as denying their white heritage. Society including blacks see them as being black because it is so hard sometimes in distinguishing a bi-racial from a black person with two black parents. Oftentimes a full-blooded black looks more white than a bi-racial. Also a lot of it is all you have been raised, how the parents involved feel about race. Anyway the author does thorough interviews regarding this issue.


Interesting, more negative prespectives than positive.   May 28, 1998
 5 out of 5 found this review helpful

The book was filled with people from every walk of life and every age. Having a biracial black and white marriage and raising biracial children, I found the book helpful in reading about other experiences; however many of those experinces were negative compared to our family's.

I would have liked to have read about more positive experiences. It is a great book for people who would like to know first hand about being black and white in our American culture.