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Title: White Lies : Race and the Myths of Whiteness by Maurice Berger ISBN: 0-374-52715-6 Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux Pub. Date: 28 April, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.31 (16 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: One drop of blood is worth $50 Million
Comment: Maurice Berger book is unusual for several reasons. One is that although he is classified as belonging to a "successful" ethnic group that is Jewish. He and his sister encounter virulent rejection from this group. Because of their poverty and down at heel address. (they reside in the projects) and are therefore assumed by their Jewish teachers to be "educationally retarded" Maurice Berger knows what it is like to be on the receiving end of prejudice and how nebulous ethnic definitions truly are. His story is a remarkable one because of the jarring polarity of his parent's stance on race. His mother's panic stricken complexion concealing beauty routine. Did not shock me at all because I know that many of the nuances surrounding racial superiority have their basis in physical aesthetics. Berger rips off the cultural façade by including anecdotes that indicate being born of obvious African decent implies being born physically repellent and socially tarnished in the eyes of whites. He includes the Dictionary definition for "black" and its metaphors comparing it to "white." So that it is made clear that being called "black" is the same as being called "blemished" "dirty" and "unlucky" but white is "pure" "unblemished" and "good." Mr. Berger dismisses American whiteness proclamations of "racial purity" as genetically bogus when he states that white Americans have between 5-20 % African ancestry running through their veins. By this he indicates that he recognizes that whiteness is a social construction hence the "white lies" of the title. For the social and economic privilege derived from being classified as 'whites' many deny their true ancestry
Mr. Berger rightly sees the classification of races as a form of social restraint stemming from economic and political competition. He also believes that most whites know this but won't admit it. He gives an example of homeowners being asked to answer some racial questions after declaring that "allowing blacks into their neighborhood would drag down the property value of their homes" They were each informed that instead of race being determined by fate it would instead be allocated in quotas by the government. They are told that they have been wrongly made whites and will now be made blacks but they have an offer of compensation. How much do they think their "loss" of their racial grouping is worth ? One man said "50 million so that he could live anywhere free from prejudice" another simply stated "that he would NEVER give up his race" Previously they had all been on the defensive declaring themselves non racists. Whilst insisting that blacks imagined slights and racism where there was none to be found. But their own replies belied this assertion making it clear that being born white was so socially advantages and economically valuable in America. That like the art in the Vatican. It was basically priceless.
I found the reflections on his father more intriguing than the ones on his mother. Because of his father's refusal to capitulate to family and ethnic group pressure stereotypes to be a professional success. His father identified with the plight of African-Americans not from guilt. But because he knew that no matter how much you tried to please you could still be rejected for being what you are. Mr. Berger's startling revelation that he scupper's his father's opportunity for domestic happiness with an African American nurse by using emotional blackmail. Is simply shocking when he knew that his father's relationship with his late mother was physically cold and intellectually juxtaposed.
Rating: 5
Summary: Startling and Illuminating
Comment: This is a truly surprising, even startling book. I didn't expect to react to it so emotionally--I was very much moved by the personal stories. They made me think of my own life. By the time I finished the book, I felt as if something had changed in my own attitudes about race in America. I strongly recommend WHITE LIES to anyone troubled by the present state of racial affairs in America.
Rating: 5
Summary: Confrontational, Provacative, and Inciteful
Comment: At first, I just picked up the book to skim through it, and all of a sudden i find myself reading through chapter after chapter- it completely sucked me in. In Maurice's journey of discovering himself, and what it means to be white- you too open your eyes to your own race, racism in general, and what whiteness really is. It's a compelling book that I would recommend to anyone of any nationality.
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Title: Becoming and Unbecoming White : Owning and Disowning a Racial Identity by Christine Clark, James O'Donnell ISBN: 0897896211 Publisher: Bergin & Garvey Pub. Date: 28 February, 1999 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: The Racial Contract by Charles Wade Mills ISBN: 0801484634 Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr Pub. Date: September, 1999 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Democracy and Technology by Richard E. Sclove ISBN: 089862861X Publisher: Guilford Press Pub. Date: 28 July, 1995 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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Title: Terror in the Mind of God : The Global Rise of Religious Violence by Mark Juergensmeyer ISBN: 0520240111 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice by Paul Kivel ISBN: 0865714592 Publisher: New Society Pub Pub. Date: May, 2002 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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