Our Souls to Keep: Black/White Relations in America

Rating:
Summary: The Author Contradicts Himself
Review: .
I would not recommend this book to anyone. The book reflects Henderson's obvious bias against white people and his own prejudices. He talks about white people having negative stereotypical attitudes about blacks. Well Henderson only reinforces his own negative stereotypical attitudes about white people.

Henderson has no business writing books on race relations, since he is a victim of his own prejudices. Reading this book only reinforces negative attitudes towards white people and, in my opinion, offers nothing to improve race relations. Don't waste your money!

If you are a white man who has experienced verbal abuse and other types of harassment by blacks, females and/or other minorities in the work place, you will undestand why!

If you are a white male student who has experienced verbal abuse and other types of harassment by black techers, female teachers and/or other minority teachers and students in the classroom, you will understand why!

Minority study programs are indoctinating women and minorities with hate! They are doing little to really stop sexism and racism! They have the effect of ENCOURAGING discrimination and hate crimes against white males!

Rating:
Summary: Book Is Presumptuous! Author is Biased!
Review: .
I remember George Henderson well.

During the 1968 Martin Luther King Memorial Service, sponsored by a University of Oklahoma chapter of the United Christian Youth Movement, of which I previously served as a president, Henderson stood before the congregation of 100% white Christian students, who had come to honor Dr. King, and, while pointing his finger at us, shouted, "You killed Martin Luther King.!"

He and all the black students in attendance INTENTIONALLY segregated themselves from the white students who were seated on the grass in front of the OU podium, as members of the congregation. The black students and Henderson, accompanied by a few white hypocrites, postured themselves behind the podium, pronouncing judgment on the rest of us.

The spectacle was disgusting! Neither Henderson nor his accomplices EVER apologized for their crime of character assassination.

I myself, I might add, had been actively involved in civil rights myself since I was selected to be president of the United Christian Youth Movement in Missouri in 1955, and was a respected leader of the movement.

The University of Oklahoma had been integrated since the 1950s. Prior to Henderson's arrival in Norman, Oklahoma from Detroit in 1967, to teach at University of Oklahoma, there had been no racial discord. Henderson himself, in my opinion, intentionally created an atmosphere of racial segregation and racial discord in order to position himself as a power broker.

In a publication called "The Big Red Eye," cataloged in the archives of the University of Oklahoma Library, Henderson brags about how he used his own spare time during his youth "beating up white kids" when he couldn't find "anything to steal or any windows to break out."

In his book, Our Souls to Keep, Henderson says: "A few affluent blacks who lived in East Chicago [where Henderson himself grew up] formed their own bourgeois society, a subculture of black privilege. Those black Anglo-Saxons were IN the community, not OF it. The first time I was called 'nigger,' the epithet came from an uppity black child, offended because I had touched her dress."

Interestingly, Henderson refers to his own affluent black neighbors as "Anglo-Saxons" and as "uppity."

He also says: "My father was health-conscious, and I thought at the time, sadistic."

He then goes on to make the following presumptuous claim:
"Whites who accuse black males of robbery, kidnapping, or murder are more readily believed by law enforcement officials and community residents than are blacks who accuse white males of similar crimes."

Henderson's is not only a victim of his own prejudices and lies; he also has a lot of resentment towards other black people. Yet he has victimized innocent white people, including myself and other University of Oklahoma students, by his lies ( i.e. having falsely accused us of killing MLK) and has thus fueled the fires of racism. He has seemingly become a very wealthy man by doing so.

By the way, Henderson reportedly receives a salary of approximately $130,000 a year from University of Oklahoma, paid for by the taxes and tuition assessed poor white students, as well as poor black students, and by other hard working taxpayers.

Henderson is unwilling to acknowledge the truth, that the majority of poor, disenfranchised people in America are white people, not black people! He also conveniently avoids dealing with the issue of hate crimes committed by blacks against white people. Henderson has demonized the white man throughout his book, while exonerating himself from blame for his own irresponsible, cowardly and inhumane acts against the innocent.

Rating:
Summary: Book Is Presumptuous! Author is Biased!
Review: I found myself wishing the author would include more statistics to demonstrate his conclusions. Nice work. Lots of poetry!

Rating:
Summary: But where are the facts?
Review: I found myself wishing the author would include more statistics to demonstrate his conclusions. Nice work. Lots of poetry!