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 enlarge | Author: Lena Williams
Publisher: Harvest Books
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
Buy New: $4.46
You Save: $9.54 (68%)
New (34) Used (30) Collectible (1) from $4.46
Avg. Customer Rating:  60 reviews
Sales Rank: 297928
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.9
ISBN: 0156013487
Dewey Decimal Number: 305.800973
EAN: 9780156013482
ASIN: 0156013487
Publication Date: January 7, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Reality August 1, 2006
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
This book encompasses various experiences from invidivuals who have expereinced racism first handedly. While racism has been demonstrated by society as a struggle between blacks and whites, but other cultures have experienced racism in the United States. This book includes different ethnic groups however the two dominating racial groups are blacks and whites. This is a must read book for all who wants to make a difference in society and make changes to the already damaging United States.
 Thought Provoking Read February 15, 2006
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
Sometimes it is good to just vent. This is what Lena Williams does here, and this book should be taken as an individual's point of view. It would have been a real achievement, however, if she'd got/let/found white people to speak as frankly as she does. Aside from one white female postal worker, she only seems to have found elite whites to speak to -- oh, a few Asians and Hispanics at the end -- also with similarly high stations in life.
Instead, she drew from her own circles -- people who work at The New York Times, who attended private universities. Who attended universities, period. If she'd talked to white ethnic working class people -- and can I please put in here, that I hate being labeled white as much as she finds fault with the various terms for her own race -- she would have found some equally provocative, possibly offensive, but essential truths to match her own deeply felt reactions to the America she was born into.
While I mostly enjoyed this and read it without offense, I was amazed at the solipsism she is at no pains to accuse white folks of. For example -- she quotes her niece saying that white Americans are so threatened by the "browning" of America, that they're importing blond slavic types from Eastern Europe. Excuse me -- but does this educated young woman know what's been going on in the former Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries in recent years? Is she that ignorant and self-centered? If Ms. Williams had shown this as an example of paranoia -- O.K., but she seems to support it as a legitimate point of view.
The assumption is also made that the playing field in America is level for non-blacks, that we are all Kennedys and Bushes, rife with golf club connections and entre into elite circles. America is full of poor, underclass people, immigrant and otherwise. The white elite are never hurt by affirmative action programs, which is why they seldom complain of them -- poor whites and ethnic immigrants are, which is why they have historically been the most reactionary racist.
I am a veteran of many affirmative action companies and have seen some pretty interesting things. I also have lived as a minority in darker-skinned ethnic neighborhoods and don't see any of my experiences reflected here.
If she'd made an effort to get honest answers from people, she would have got a more interesting and resonant story. As it was, I think she talked to proper, privileged white people who haven't been on the underside of race relations -- for example, a crime victim? Armed services people? Policemen of all races? She avoids the really tough stuff, and focuses on lint-picking. Too bad. An opportunity wasted.
 Well -- At least she tried again. October 10, 2004
3 out of 15 found this review helpful
I'm just shocked she got another chance at the same subject matter twice.
How about we stop pushing the stereotype that all "blacks" think this way, and all "whites" act that way and move on already. The notion that "race" is the defining issue is nonsense. Culturally the person raised in a different environment than me is bound to get under my skin now and then as I try to understand where they are coming from. No need for a book to tell me that.
It's the little things March 17, 2004
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
I did enjoy the book and what she had to say about the way blacks and whites act when they are around eachother. This book may me understand a little bit better on race and what is was like for the people that had to grow up around that. I really think this book is pretty good and i wounld tell a friend that they should read the book.
Insightful but not truly helpful July 16, 2003
25 out of 26 found this review helpful
I read Ms. Williams' book to better understand racism in this country as experienced and described by Black people. (I am an Asian American woman and recognize that my own experiences with racism and oppression are unique to me and, to some extent, to my specific racial/ethnic group.)Her book will definitely provide you with some sense of how some Black people experience life in this country. And for that, the book is both an opener for the eyes and the soul. You may be very surprised at what angers, amuses, and discomforts Black people. (I myself learned many new things that I would not otherwise have known.) You may think that many things are due to mistaken assumptions or false understandings of "White people." (That's certainly true enough, something that Ms. Williams on occasion admits to being a problem.) But I promise you: If you read this book with open eyes and an open soul, you will never view encounters with Black people--your own and those of other people around you--the same way again. It doesn't really matter if the beliefs, perceptions, and assumptions of the Black people quoted in the book are true or if you think they're true. Some of them are not. What does matter (and why you should care) is that there are a myriad of things that White people do--consciously and unconsciously--that really angers Black people. And as long as they continue to exist and anger Black people, we as a country won't get very far ahead in "race relations" and healing ourselves from racism. Other readers have identified problems with Ms. Williams' book. At times, Ms. Williams' sentiments do sound petty and unrelated to the topic at hand. Ms. Williams does not bother to consider how other issues like gender, class (a big issue that, ironically enough, she does not recognize in herself or her friendship circle), etc. also affect the experiences of both Whites and Blacks. The book is anecdotal and would have benefited greatly from an analytical methodology. The experiences described in the book are from a very select group of people who she met through a series of focus groups and primarily from her friendship circle. Ms. Williams provides no solutions or strategies for what she describes. But, for all those problems and faults, the book is still worth reading. (It is surprisingly easy reading for being such a potentially difficult and sore subject.) If her book makes you rethink the way we interact with each other and Black people, then it's done more than it's share of work towards increasing dialogue between people and races. And if it makes you rethink that, then I don't think it's too much more to make people actually change the way they interact with people from different races.
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