From Publishers Weekly
A white man married to a black woman, spurred by a racist joke to feel "fear and anguish" for children, Washington Post Magazine writer Harrington decided to "go out and travel America's parallel black world" to explore the nation's racial conundrums. As he traverses the North, South and West, Harrington deftly paints vivid, brief scenes: a black businessman visits prison inmates, a worker in a road crew lights up at meeting Jesse Jackson, students at a small college in southern Illinois discuss interracial dating. He meets "hard cop" Charleston police chief Reuben Greenberg, filmmaker Spike Lee and novelist James Alan McPherson, who says, "I'm not a great man, but I'm not just a race person." Reflecting on his own relationships with blacks, Harrington revisits relatives and former college classmates. While the insight "racism still rages, but it is for too many blacks also an excuse" hardly merits its presentation as a revelation, Harrington rightly observes that America's racial conflicts also involve culture and class. "Blacks and whites in America are the same and different," he concludes, and his thoughtful mosaic should encourage fresh dialogue. Illustrations not seen by PW.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From School Library Journal
YA-- A provocative and moving look at black America. From taped interviews and notes, Harrington, a white journalist, documents a 25,000-mile journey across small towns and cosmopolitan cities. He spent time talking to individuals--a filmmaker, a baseball player, a jazz musician, a convicted murderer, a welfare mother, a former campus radical, and young black kids. They share their experiences in school desegregation, sharecropping, jobs in small towns, and in military service. His encounters are enlivened with conversations flavored by local colloquialisms, residual prejudices, even latent hostilities, countered with surprising good humor. They will startle and inspire liberal and conservative readers alike. Careful details of food, money, music, dress, and especially hair will capture the interest of YAs who might sample these sketches and come away realizing that this book cuts across regional, age, occupational, and economic-class lines. Indexing by themes, such as anger, black affluence, stereotypes, and interracial dating, makes it even more valuable to students of American culture and sociology.
- Betta Hedlund, Mary Riley Styles Public Library, Falls Church, VACopyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
