Rating: 
Summary: An endorsement of the myth of white racial "purity"
Review: The disturbing thing about Williams' book is that he seems to accept the racist idea that a true "white" person is totally "free"of nonwhite ancestry - or at least black ancestry.
Williams' tries to ignore the fact that his younger brother and sister identify as white. He tries to paint his mother as a racist who rejected him because of his "tainted" blood, but he has no answer for the fact that his mother reared his younger brother and sister even though their
paternity was the same as his. My sympathy goes to a struggling single mother who was forced to
leave a battering husband, find a job and rear children on her own.
Williams paints his light mulatto father, Tony (I will not use the racist term "light-skinned black man" because it endorses
the myth of hypodescent and implies that Tony wasn't good enough for his white ancestry) as a victim of "racism" but I don't buy it.
Tony was a "white" man (Who the hell has the authority to say who is or isn't white?) who lost his business and his wife (He was alcoholic and a wife-beater)
through his own incompetence and stupidity. Those are individual faults, not "racial" ones. Williams wants us to think that Tony's incompetence came about as a result of
"denying" his "black blood." Are we to assume that every "white" alcoholic or wife-batterer is
hiding a "black blood" stigma? Please!!
Tony was guilty of child abuse - a fact Williams doesn't want to recognize.
The worthless bum takes his innocent older sons away from their mother,
dumbs them in Muncie, Indiana with an alcoholic old black woman in the poorest
slum in town, tells them they are now "colored" and obliged to take the "Negro" side in the racial cold war that was the reality in Muncie. That was like calling yourself
a Communist during the 1950s. Also, I have no sympathy for Tony's inability
to get a decent job. Any "white" man in the 1950s could
get a good job if he tried. Tony Williams just decided to self-destruct.
He should have been thrown into prison for abusing his sons the way he did.
Williams, who is Law School Dean at Ohio State University, knows that many people (especially those of Hispanic or Arabic origin)
freely identify as "white" or otherwise nonblack when their phenotypes clearly show Negroid ancestry.
Society has not forced Williams to pretend to be "black." The inferiority complex
instilled in him by his father did that. The worst thing about this book is that Williams is proclaiming his devotion
to a racist myth of white "purity" while pretending to fight "racism."
Rating: 
Summary: My View
Review: This book has been reviewed and previewed extensively, so I won't go into it further. I read this book twice - both times, aching for the shock GHW and his brother suffered and the struggle to adjust and find a corner of the world for themselves. My one arguement, however, is that the author damns the town for its' treatment of them. I always kept in mind the time frame and the reaction could have happened in any other town in the country - such was the prevailing attitude, in general, in the late 50's and early 60's. In an email to the author, after one or two had passed, I asked him if possibly he had damned a whole town as a racist, when it is entirely possible that he and his brother would have faced the same problems elsewhere. There was no response. I do live in Muncie and I have lived all over the country as well - it is not a perfect town. Racism exists - everywhere and on all sides. I am sorry for the life he and his brother had to endure in their boyhood years - he overcame more than I could handle, I think. That said, I don't believe the man was fair in how he views the time and events as pertains to the town...he could have been anywhere and this would have happened. It is an indictment of the era, not specific to just one place. I found that aspect to be flawed in his writing.
Rating: 
Summary: A great piece of literature
Review: This book is masterfully put together. It's a memoir but it is also an excellent piece of literature. It may sometimes be very unpleasant but it is very real. I really liked it. As the author's father is on the train from Virginia with his ten and nine year old sons, the author Greg and Mike respectively, after his white wife fled his violent alcoholism with their two other children, heading for Muncie Indiana after his previously modestly profitable business enterprises, including a tavern, had collapsed, he informs them that he is not Italian as they had always assumed but half-black, the product of a wealthy white Kentucky man and his black maid. Their father, a dreadful alcoholic, eventually settles himself and his two sons with his mother in Muncie who is also an alcoholic, in her hideous shack which is a hang out for all sorts of neighborhood low life. The boys are eventually rescued by a widow of a prominent local hustler whom they call "Miss Dora" a fifty two year old black lady who is very poor but strongly motivated vis a vis the boys by religous conviction and she lets them live with her. She is well acquainted with their father. Their father Anthony or "Buster", is probably the most picturesque figure throughout the book. He seems to have been one of the greatest hustlers in the history of humanity. He spents alot of his time in the shack with his mother drinking and fighting with her. He spends the rest of the time working odd jobs dragging his sons along to help out, gambling, swindling rummage sale clerks, asking for favors and money from local politicians and policeman, bar hopping and visiting the local brothel as well as engaging in sex with any woman willing (his abilities in this area have a high local reputation). My favorite episode involving him is when heleaps up on the podium to kiss John F. Kennedy who was campaiging in Muncie in 1960 and waves to a cheering crowd. The author was clearly regarded in Muncie and under the circumstances was forced to call himself black which he did not shrink from but was forced to endure pretty abominable racism. He was an excellent student and a pretty good athlete but the only serious guidance he got from counsellors or teachers throughout his schooling were stern warnings after he was caught engaging in suspiscious behavior with a white girl in a secluded part of school. He was always very dilligent and polite and was particularly grateful to Miss Dora whose home shielded him and his brother somewhat from the vulgarity and violence of his father's life and to whom he gave all the income that he and his brother could muster from working odd jobs. But his father excersised a greater and greater alcohol-inspired tyranny over them as they got older though his wrath was directed the most at Greg. This book contains a very vivid portrayal of the violence and misery of life in 1950's America. Not exactly "Ozzie and Harriet." The author portrays very well his teenage years where his environment at his junior high and high school both of which contained a mixture of black and white students was very racially volatile. Towards the end of high school, he ends up falling in love with a pretty white girl named Sara whom he he will marry in 1969 but not before alot of pain particularly from her side as she experiences the hostility and ostracism of her family and anyone else who finds out she is in love with a "Negro" and participating in civil rights activism. His youth was in many ways what one would expect in an environment full of dreadful poverty and apathy. On the other hand it was a pretty typical American male youth. The author is very far from reticient in dealing with matters involving sex. In his social circle sex or at least talking often about it was a big part of achieving one's maturity, though Greg always was far behind many of his friends particularly his closest friend Brian Settles. Though he did have quite some interesting experiences with a pretty young gal named Hattie including when he was fifteen in Miss Dora's living room engaging in intense carnal stimulation while Miss Dora, Hattie's mother and his grandmother were in the next room. He ran up excitedly to his room in the atic and carried down with him his pencil pouch from school and Hattie said....... There are alot of memorable or perhaps fascinatingly grotesque characters in this book. Like Fred Badders, a white man, twenty five years his grandmothers's junior but utterly hideous looking who shows up at his grandmother's house every time her social security check comes in and he allows her to use him sexually. Or his brother Mike who becomes involved with various gangsters and moves into a violent and very poor housing project in Chicago with one of his ladies and ends up sleeping with, among a good many women, a student teacher at his high school and two fourty year old women including "Bernice" and Mike at one point tells his brother about a time that he had his dad were lying in bed with her and......Oh boy, anyway I should rap this up. Mike eventually straigtened out though not before he lost his eyesight in a shooting. Anyway a remarkable achievement. The author, who is currently a professor of law, is able to tell his story in a very unpretensious and intelligent way. There is quite a few grotesque and shocking episodes in this book but they are molded into a story which is very real.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating - Poignant - Shocking
Review: This book should be required reading for everybody. Not only is it very well written, but it contains numerous anecdotes that, from a psychological standpoint, are nothing less than fascinating. Simply put, "Life on the Color Line" illustrates the absurdity of prejudice with greater profundity than any book I have ever read. Words that came out of the mouth of Gregory's own grandmother left me so stunned that I was numb for hours, and I am still shocked by it.
Dr. Williams, you have written a masterpiece. Thank you, thank you, for telling your amazing story. Your childhood may have been unbelievably horrific, but it has left you a greater man by far.
Rating:
Summary: I have recommended this book to everyone I know.
Review: This book should be required reading for students and teachers in high shcool and college. Besides being an engrossing story about racism, it also represents the ability of one individual raised in overwhelming circumstances to want to change his life and succeed. This book represents the triumph of the human spirit over adversity.
Rating:
Summary: can't recommend it highly enough.....
Review: This book touched a deep chord in me and I would recommend it to anyone. People's realities are so different and we can never really be able to feel what it is to walk in another's shoes. Mr. Williams, though, in this remarkable book, gives us the opportunity to experience some of what it is like to be someone other than yourself and to understand how your life can change, depending on how people perceive you. One reason this book touched me is that I have had a similar life experience and have lived too some of what Mr. Williams details in his book. He articulates it beautifully. I think this book should be requred reading for anyone hoping to bridge racial divides and begin to understand and really SEE each other. Thank you, Mr. Williams, for sharing your story.
Rating:
Summary: I couldn't even imagine life like this.
Review: This book was well written. I feel this way because the only way to tell the story was to write exactly the way it was lived. I believe anyone that goes through a childhood like the main character, Billy, did deserves the publicity for writing this book. In this book Billy gives in great detail how significant his family was throughout his life. His father, even though an alcoholic, had been a big part of Mike and his life. After the mother left, the father was left to care for the boys. Consequently, being left with their father Billy and Mike became problem children. An example of this is when they were kicked out of many schools for fighting and making a nuisense out of themselves. Until they grew up, they were unsure how to act because of being told they were black. Unfortunately, this added to the fact that their mother had left them. However, by the end of the book Mike and Billy learned how to be successful and how to tell the difference between right and wrong, in their own way. Anyone who reads this book might be thankful and appreciate their family a little more. I know it changed the way I look at my childhood and my family.
Rating:
Summary: Life on the Color Line
Review: This is a haunting portrayal of a young man's struggle to reach adulthood. I've never read a book that touched my heart as this one did. His poignant story will stay with me forever. I'm so sorry he had to live it and so very glad he made it through!
Rating:
Summary: A powerful memoir on black and white
Review: This is a heartfelt book, which helped me to understand how the American obsession with race perverts the characters of both so-called black and so-called white people. It tells us that these terms do not mean much, either. According to social scientists, 80% of black Americans have white ancestors, and 20% of white Americans have black ancestors. This book shows us how this happens. Gregory Howard Williams lets us feel the cynicism and rage of blacks in the 1950s and 1960s,long before whites became aware of it. It also is a stark description of the unfeeling, harsh behavior by both young and old, toward blacks of all ages. The book reminded me of THE SWEETER THE JUICE; A FAMILY MEMOIR IN BLACK AND WHITE, by Shirlee Taylor Haizlip. An eye opener!
Rating:
Summary: Very Moving, heartbreaking & uplifting all at the same time
Review: This is a true story of a boy who became a man in the worse of circumstances. Gregs father was intelligent and charming but also an alcoholic who beat his wife. When living in Virgina his father was a successful, if not somewhat shady business man. When his mother could no longer endure the beatings and abuse, she fled taking the younger two children with her. Leaving the other two Greg and his brother Mike to be raised by their father James. Gregs mother was white and even though her family tolerated the presence of her children there were references to their heritage. When Greg's fathers (James) business failed due to his alcoholism, the family moved to Indiana where Greg first learned that his father was not Italian but instead half black. James dumped the two boys on a relative who although she tried to help was unable to support the boys. They were then sent to live with their paternal grandmother..who was also an alcoholic. The boys were forced to sleep! ! on a small cot next to the toilet, kept awake all hours by the drinking and gambling that was a constant presence in his grandmothers home. The major concern in the household was if they would have enough money to get drunk, never worrying that the boys hadn't eaten. At this point in using the modern term of dysfunctional family, would be considered kind in describing the kind of family /upbringing that Greg was forced to endure. Greg and his brother were taken in by a lady who was completely unrelated and not financially able to completely provide for them but willing to sacrifice everything she had for them. This is what I find so touching in the book and in real life as I know...amoung the "black" community, this is not an unusual thing. From the time that Greg and his brother moved to Indiana, they struggled not only in day to day survival for the bare necessities..but in trying to learn where they fit in. This is what I find so heartbreaking. I thi! ! nk that this book needs to be required reading...not in col! lege but in 6 or 7th grade. It teaches so many good things. The friendship that he found with Brian who accepted him for who he was, not the color of his skin. This is a lesson sorely needed in today's society. It also teaches that education and hard work is the way out of the getto, not drugs...again a lesson needing to be taught to todays children. It is easy to hate Gregs father for the abuse and alcoholism or his mother for abandoning him...but as Greg had to deal with all these issues...the one thing that he could not forget was that for whatever else they were...they are his parents...and every child longs for their parents approval and love and even in the end..when Greg stood up to his father and was angry with his father..he never forgot that this is his father. There were so many issues brought out in this book but I think the ones I would want my daughter to learn by reading it is: You can go anywhere you want if you work hard at it and decide that is what yo! ! u are going to do; Not to settle for what others decide your worthy of...make your own choices and then fight with every fiber of your being for those choices. The profanity and sexual situations in this book I know would be considered by some to be too vulgar for young readers...but what they need to think about is that, kids hear alot worse in school or on the playground, in their music and on t.v.. Those lessons that Gregs father pounded into him were to not get caught up in sex/alcohol/drugs...because it would make achieving his dreams that much more difficult if not impossible.
|
