Customer Reviews

Killers of the Dream

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I had a History professor who assigned this book for reading no matter what course he was teaching. I didn't understand why until several years after I finshed college. Ms. Smith describes the "ghosts" of the consciousness of the American south, the mythical fears that separate the races, in a way that is literate, poetic and unflinching. If you want to understand the history of the South, this book will fill in the gaps for you.

I'd give it more than five stars if it was possible. What a courageous woman to have published this in 1949! I am so glad it was re-issued in 1994!!!! Smith provides insights on, and discusses in depth, things that are basic underpinnings of race relations in this country, but are rarely mentioned. The book is a must for anyone trying to gain insight into the foundations of white privilege and its implications, as well as improving race relations. An absolutely *incredible* book.

Ms. Smith's honesty and eloquence in telling a profoundly American story about the perfidy of the South of her childhood is a literary tour de force about an immensely important slice of American history. It is a profoundly American tragedy fashioned from the most basic of human materials, human fallibilities, many of which still consume us as Americans--black or white, north or south. This book is the most sombering account of who we Americans are--as opposed to who we wished we were--anyone is likely to ever encounter. Unfortunately, since her death, Ms. Smith's story of about race, sex, religion, politics, economics and deception in the south has become the American way of life, writ large.

Upon reading the very first page, I knew I had a very special book in my hands. This is one of the most beautifully written and insightful books I have ever read, with an honesty and moral awareness one would find in the writings of Robert Coles.

Part One, "The Dreamers" chronicles Ms. Smith's life, as well as what she observed of the South as a Southerner herself.

Part Two, "The White Man's Burden," Ms. Smith explains how segregation shuts out not only blacks, but also whites.

Part Three, "Giants of the Earth," discusses how the powers to be, men in politics and business leaders, created the current situtation of segregation in the South and the reasons they wish to maintain the status quo.

Part Four, "The Dream and Its Killers," explores how the very future of humanity, "the Dream," depends on a willingness to embrace positive change and challenge those aspects of the status quo that aim to keep that from happening.

The lucid and careful telling of Ms Smith's story is a great contributions to understanding our time and place. The hidden issues of race and injustice continue to plague our country. So much of it seems incomprehensible because it is wrapped in Christian Theology. Ms Smith reveals the secrets that keep the evil and pain alive.

Lillian Smith's book is amazing considering that it was written in 1947 well before the Civil Rights era and before African American voices were heard by the white community. She starts by telling us the problems children had in separating what they were taught at home and at church with the reality of segregation in which all black people were considered inferior to them. God created us equal but not too equal. I am a Californian who has lived in the South for 16 years; I have been trying all that time to understand the Southern perspective and have found this book to be a real help in understanding a part of our country who. we know, suffered in a way the North never suffered after the Civil War and into the 20th Century,but still could never admit they were wrong about the war or that slavery and later segregation was evil.

...and we do not know how to rid ourselves of it." I first read this book in the `60's, while I was in college in Atlanta, and the old order of racial segregation collapsed. The book was a present from a friend at Spellman College, with numerous passages highlighted for my benefit, or perhaps anyone's. Lillian Smith, a white Southerner, performed a most critical analysis of the "southern system," following with a far more personal touch what had been completed a decade or so prior, by a foreigner, Gunnar Myrdal, in An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (Black and African-American Studies) Volume 1. She could, since she had the ability to relate how she was socialized into accepting this system as the "normal" way individuals should relate. She concludes this excellent work with the subject quote.

Lo' after even these many years I still vividly recalled one chapter in this book in particular, and it required a revisit, due to recent events in the news, specifically the attacks on Public Service unions by various state governors, which are supported by a certain segment of the population, currently going by the rubric, "The Tea Party." The chapter in Smith's book is entitled: "Two Men and a Bargain." She tells it in the form of a parable, and the two men are Mr. Poor White and Mr. Rich White. The bargain was summed up by Ms. Smith in the agreement promoted by Mr. Rich White: "Suppose now you take over the thing you can do and let me take over the thing I can do. You boss the n-----, and I'll boss the money." The author continues: "...we'll give you the pick of what jobs there are, and if things get too tight you can take over his jobs also, for any job's better than no job at all." So, as Ms. Smith continues, though Mr. Poor White's life was not of the plantation home, he was offered something to forget his troubles: "To be `superior,' to be the `best people on earth' with the best `system' of making a living, because your sallow skin was white and you were `Anglo-Saxon,' made you forget that you lived in a shanty and ate pot-likker and corn bread, and worked long hours for nothing." What a "bargain"! And although the players have changed a bit, and it is not particularly race that is the key ingredient, still you have Mr. Rich, personified now by two multi-billionaire brothers who fund the Tea Party, trying to socialize the vast majority into accepting "austerity"; that the new "normal" is to be less, in terms of pensions, health care, education et al., and if you lose your social safety net, and you company no longer offers health care, then target the people who still have it, so they lose theirs also, which certainly keeps the focus off the billionaires, as Thomas Frank so well related in What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America. And forget that "American Dream" which we wish to kill. It is indeed, the French Revolution run in reverse, and the vast majority are asked to sacrifice for the new Lords and Ladies.

There is so much more in this book than this one chapter. Smith's first chapter is entitled "When I was a Child," in which she brilliantly describes the acculturation process that each white southern experienced. There was a heavy reliance on "God" who had established this naturally order of things. Ah, the often quoted "there will always be the drawers of water and hewers of wood..." And sexual fears also provided a "solid foundation" to this system. Deference was always do... Overall, it is a searing and devastating portrait of the South in the era of segregation.

And what of reading a seminal work that has been marked up by someone who was not a beneficiary of this "normal" and God-given system? There are the plain vanilla markings on: "They did a thorough job of dishonoring curiosity, of making honesty seem a treasonable thing, of leaving in their children an unquenchable need to feel superior to others, to bow easily to authority...." Another passage merit a much stronger "three lines" in the margin: "It was not evil but the knowledge of it that injured, these mothers believed." Only one had three lines, and a "star": "And there is a burning blasting scorn of white men growing in the minds not only of upper-class Negro women but of nearly every woman of the colored race, making it a fairly dangerous thing for a white male to approach one of them." Gulp! Fortunately real "change" came, far before the last election, and within a decade after receiving the book I found that particular sentiment to be mitigated.

A 5-star plus read, even without the notations, for how things once were, and how that applies to today's events.

I had to get this book for my ethnic and gender studies class.. and I didn't have a problem reading it at all. It was very interesting and well-written, and I'd recommend it to anyone !

I remember working at a newspaper here in my city and one of my colleagues recommended this book for me to read. She is white and I am black and at the time I didn't know why she recommeneded it except that I am an avid reader. So I got the book and read it. It was riveting. It gave me a glimpse from another perspective and this woman obviously was saddened by what happened between the whites and blacks of the old South. She said that in order for whites to justify the horrible way blacks were treated they had to have a split personality ---schizophrenic. Otherwise they would not have been able to inflict such atrocities and go to church on Sunday and pretend like they were living a Christian life. It blew me away. Her writing style is easy to read and to the point. I talk about this book to this day. She explains racism in a way that helps you to understand the hatred. Of course, it doesn't help you to forgive the perpetrators because they have not forgiven themselves. Brutal and honest.

My book group just finished "The Help" (I know that should be underlined but I could not figure out how to do it) by Kathryn Stockett and someone recommended this as a good companion book to understand the reality of race relations. I learned a lot about how the "South" thinks, how the "North" has it's share of the problem, and how much everything is tied together with fundamentalism. I may be wrong, but having just finished "The Family" by Jeff Sharlit I can see the roots of their theology in the southern culture. A very important book for understanding race relations today and why so many people are having a hard timw accepting Obama as our president.