Black, White, Other: Biracial Americans Talk About Race and Identity [Paperback]

Lise Funderburg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 14, 1995

In Black, White, Other journalist Lise Funderburg presents the lives and views of forty-six adult children of black-white unions. Topics include love and marriage, racism in the workplace, and bringing up children in a racially divided world.

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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

As we prepare to enter a new millenium, for the United States race remains the issue, woven into the fabric of almost every American life. Yet few Americans confront the ambiguities of race as regularly as those of biracial descent. In Black, White, Other journalist Lise Funderburg questions 46 biracial Americans about family and love, work and religion, and the mythology surrounding the "tragic mulatto." Her book reveals a great deal about life on both sides of the color line--and exposes just how artificial, how socially constructed, our concept of race is to begin with. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

In a sensitive exploration of the pressures and prejudices confronting biracial individuals, Funderburg, a New York-based freelance journalist, presents in-depth interviews with 46 American adults who have one black and one white parent. Her respondents report feeling tremendous pressure to choose one racial identity over the other as they were growing up, yet many finally embraced both racial heritages. The interviewees--among them teachers, executives, law students, a psychiatrist, a screenwriter, a newspaper reporter--talk about their developing sense of a biracial identity and how they confront expectations or stereotypes based on their physical appearance. In her insightful probe Funderburg, herself biracial, organizes the testimonies thematically around such topics as love, friendship, parenting, the workplace, religion and politics. Photos.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 391 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial; 1st edition (September 14, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688143474
• ISBN-13: 978-0688143473
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #840,371 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lise Funderburg was born in 1959 and educated at Reed College and Columbia University. Her latest book is a memoir and social history called "Pig Candy: Taking My Father South, Taking My Father Home" (Free Press), which is a contemplation of life, death, and barbecue. Her first book was a collection of oral histories, "Black, White, Other: Biracial Americans Talk about Race and Identity," the first to explore the lives of adult children of black-white unions. She has been a regular contributor since 2001 to O, the Oprah Magazine and has written a book about the Tony-winning musical "The Color Purple." Her articles, essays and reviews have appeared widely in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Nation, Salon, Newsday, and other publications.

Funderburg won a 2003 Nonfiction Fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and has twice been selected as the writer-in-residence at The James Thurber House in Columbus, Ohio. She has received grants from the Dick Goldensohn Fund for Journalists, The Leeway Foundation, and the Puffin Foundation. Funderburg has been awarded residencies at The Blue Mountain Center and the MacDowell Colony. She teaches creative writing at the University of Pennsylvania and Rutgers and lives in Philadelphia with her husband, John Howard, as well as an ancient beagle called Beagle.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent research and interesting individual stories!!, July 5, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Kansas City, Missouri) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Black, White, Other: Biracial Americans Talk About Race and Identity (Paperback)

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.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Helpful as a white mother of a biracial child, May 15, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Black, White, Other: Biracial Americans Talk About Race and Identity (Paperback)

I bought this book for my biracial young adult daughter. She has been going through some tough times trying to figure out who she is. She has been raised in a white family and has always been perceived as black by society. This book gave us both some insight into her feelings and confusion.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thank God I'm not 'weird' after all !, March 9, 2000

By 

Christina Donoghue - See all my reviews

This review is from: Black, White, Other: Biracial Americans Talk About Race and Identity (Paperback)

Black White Other is a simple yet graciously objective read. It is written in such a simple style that it is like meeting a good friend for a coffee.

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.