Amazon.com Review
The Assembly of God Tabernacle in Decatur, Georgia, has succeeded at doing what most institutions in America have failed at--achieving full integration. White parishioners who thought of blacks in the worst terms in the past have now decided that all believers--black and white--are going to the same heaven, so they might as well get used to it here on earth. After a black man hugs an elderly white woman, he says, "Man, 30 or 40 years ago I would have been hung for just touching this lady." While there is genuine affection between many of the parishioners, all the complex feelings and questions that plague the races at the turn of the century are being reckoned with here. Is integration a blessing or a sellout, blacks wonder. Is it ever acceptable--or even helpful--to make race the issue, or must a preacher and his congregation always feign colorblindness? What are the burdens of blending in, and are they worth it? And will this last, or is the church just like so many neighborhoods--enjoying a fleeting moment of integration on the way to becoming predominantly black? These are just some of the touchy issues explored in this remarkable and eye-opening book.
Originally published as a series in The New York Times, the 15 stories are the outcome of a yearlong examination by a team of reporters who managed to overcome the taboo of discussing private attitudes toward race and uncover the daily experience of race relations in schools, friendships, sports, popular culture, worship, and the workplace. The result is a wide range of intimate portraits, from bringing up slavery in the Old South, to drug cops reacting silently to the Amadou Diallo verdict, to the making of the HBO special The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood.
Race clearly remains a source of misunderstanding and alienation, but there are also heartening signs of reaching out, reconciliation, and even unity. This book is an important leap into an area most fear to tread, yet also yearn to change. --Lesley Reed
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
In his introduction to this expansive book on the complexity of contemporary race relations, Joseph Lelyveld, executive editor of the New York Times, notes that he urged his correspondents to "go deep" beyond the headlines with their research and "hang in there." His staff produced 15 stellar stories that dig down to the gnarled crux of our racial dilemma in this turbulent post-O.J. era, presenting a startling array of voices and situations. In the powerful opening story, "Shared Prayers, Mixed Blessings," Kevin Sack chronicles the power of faith as a unifying force in a formerly segregated, now multi-racial church near Atlanta. Another poignant account, "Best of Friends, Worlds Apart," follows the immigration and acculturation of two youths from Cuba, where race is a lower-case issue, who find that their experiences in Miami are so different (one is dark-skinned and one is light) that it drives a wedge into their longtime friendship. Janny Scott's "Who Gets to Tell a Black Story?" explores the need for self-determination and the opportunity to define one's cultural image, as a reporter details countless obstacles faced by an African-American TV director and his writers in bringing a controversial series on drug abuse in a Baltimore neighborhood to the small screen. The unorthodox efforts of a young white writer and activist, Billy (Upski) Wimsatt, to open a dialogue between white and black youth gives new meaning to the term "wigger" (a white who wants to be black) in N.R. Kleinfeld's well-turned story, "Guarding the Borders of the Hip-Hop Nation." While the so-called "unmediated conversations about race" at the end cover familiar ground, several revelations crop up in the raw interviews with the black, white and Hispanic subjects for the pieces that are reprinted at the end of the book. Overall, this high-minded, superbly written collection unflinchingly probes America's racial struggles, posing as many solutions as it does questions, shining much-needed light on one of the nation's toughest challenges.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
