Loving Across the Color Line: A White Adoptive Mother Learns About Race [Hardcover]

Sharon Rush (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 5, 2000 | ISBN-10: 0847699129 | ISBN-13: 978-0847699124

What would a liberal, white, civil rights law professor have to learn about race? When Sharon Rush adopted an African American girl, she quickly discovered the need to throw out old assumptions and start learning over again.

This is the moving, heartfelt memoir of a mother and daughter's loving relationship that opened the author's eyes to the harsh realities of the American racial divide. Only by living with her daughter through the day-to-day encounters and life passages did Rush learn that racism is far more devastating to blacks than most whites can ever imagine.

Some of the stories are funny, others are sad, a few are almost unbelievable. But they all are poignant because they illustrate how insightful a little black girl of three can be about race and justice. Their stories also recount the author's struggle, as her daughter grew older, to come to grips with her own growing awareness of racism in America.

With love and spirituality, Rush and her daughter live a deeply joyous life, just as they both have become increasingly active in working publicly and privately against racism. Readers who journey across the color line with the author and her daughter will come away with a real-life encounter with racism and a deeper understanding of it.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With her background as a civil rights lawyer and a professor of law at the University of Florida, Rush believed she had seen the ugliness of racism and understood the depth of the issue. However, it wasn't until she adopted an African-American girl that she fully recognized the pervasiveness of discrimination and racial injustice in America. Combining academic theory with poignant personal examples, Rush contends that, as far as we've journeyed toward understanding race relations, we have much further to go. She writes, "In my opinion, race relations in America are at an impasse because White society denies racism is a continuing problem, which causes Black society to question America's commitment to equality." Backing up her statement with specific examples, Rush describes how her daughter had to fight to get into gifted classes although her I.Q. should have secured her placement. In one particularly heart-wrenching story, her daughter is exiled to the back of the classroom during a special "Dinosaur Day" presentation, although there is room available in the front next to her white classmates. Although the incident seems minor at first, the author uses it to show the unrelentingly poor treatment of her daughter, and her own struggles to overcome disbelief and frustration over myriad occurrences of a similar nature. Eschewing bitterness and condemnation, Rush instead ends the book with a lengthy and articulate prescription for improving race relations, including the creation of safe places for children to talk about race and the encouragement of dialogue between whites and African-Americans. This multilayered memoir, written with honesty and passion, is a much-needed and powerful addition to the literature on race. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Extraordinary. . . . In a series of sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes joyful accounts of her daughter's growing up, Sharon Rush provides the reader with deep insights into how racism works its evil in U.S. society. Most striking is the level of understanding that Rush has honed as she has learned the hard way the tough lessons known by every Black American. (Feagin, Joe )

As Sharon Rush invites us into her world as the White mother of an adopted Black child, we share her delights in her smart and perceptive daughter and her shock and dismay during repeated encounters with racial prejudice. Only in this role did Professor Rush learn that even her civil rights commitments had not instructed her about the operations of daily mistreatments along racial lines. By sharing her painfully earned insights and her heart, Professor Rush shares the brute realities that we all must confront if we are ever to truly live together without a color line. (Martha Minow )

I have read many books on race relations but none provides a more moving and penetrating portrayal of the racial divide and its adverse effects on interpersonal relations and human empathy than Sharon Rush's Loving across the Color Line. . . . Important for any serious discussion of the problems of race in America. (Wilson, William Julius )

This multilayered memoir, written with honesty and passion, is a much needed and a powerful addition to the literature on race. (Publishers Weekly )

The question becomes, 'Can the author step away from her situation and analyze prejudice, sexuality, class, etc.?' In the case of Loving Across the Color Line, the answer is yes. Rush, a civil rights lawyer, not only takes readers into the world of a white mother and her adopted African American daughter but also uses her parenting experiences to re-examine her beliefs on race relations in America. Her conclusion: racism is very prevalent and more debilitating than she first thought. (Library Journal )

Loving Across the Color Line offers personal stories that relate the practical day-to-day meanings of race based on Rush's experiences with her daughter, as well as insights gleaned from her professional life as an activist and educator. The result is a book which is at turns, cultural criticism, touching memoir, and a guide to parenthood in the 21st century. (Ithaca Journal )

The book adds another dimension to our thinking about race in part because of the personal nature of the story and in part because many of the incidents of racism are seen through the eyes of a young girl. The innocence of the little girl's questions and her significant dismay at other's behavior is by far the most powerful aspect of the book and stays with the reader long after it is placed aside. (Journal Of Sociology and Social Welfare )

A magnificent book. You cannot read this marvelous book and remain the same. Any family who is even thinking about adopting transracially should be required to read every page before making their final decision. (Adoption Quarterly )

...eye-opening... (The American Prospect )

Now Rush sees how when strangers pass each other whites will often greet other whites, but seldom does a greeting cross the color line. Unconscious racism shows up in many ways and she's not immune. (Gary Kirkland The Gainesvillen Sun )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (April 5, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0847699129
• ISBN-13: 978-0847699124
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #307,975 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good book about racism; less useful for adoptions, May 20, 2001

By 

Kaitin D. Sherwood "Kaitlin Duck Sherwood" (Vancouver, BC Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Loving Across the Color Line: A White Adoptive Mother Learns About Race (Hardcover)

My husband and I are White and licensed foster parents who have not yet taken any children. I read this in part because -- who knows? -- maybe we will foster across the color line.

I read this book because I was looking for insights on how to be a better foster parent to children of color. Alas, there is very little practical advice on how to parent better. Instead, the book shows how to be a better White person.

Now, this doesn't mean it's a bad book. Many White people (probably myself included) do not begin to understand what it's like to deal with the everyday slights that come with being Black. This book is valuable in part because it's harder for Whites to discount observations of racism when they come from a White person.

My only real frustration with the book was her assertion that Whites need to repudiate their privilege, without explaining exactly what she means by that. I could have a little ceremony at my home where I declare that I am unwilling to continue to benefit from White privilege, but that wouldn't make store owners suddenly start scrutinizing my every move. It wouldn't make police officers start questioning my right to stroll through affluent neighborhoods in the evening. I wouldn't become invisible to wait staff or charged more at restaurants.

If I were going to recommend a book to a White person who doesn't believe that racism in America was ever as bad as Black people say, I would recommend _Black Like Me_ by John Howard Griffin. If I wanted to convince someone that racism *still* exists, I would recommend this book.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Furthering Racism, August 20, 2004

By 

K. M. Viger "Bibliophile" (Michigan, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Loving Across the Color Line: A White Adoptive Mother Learns About Race (Hardcover)

I purchased this book because we are a white (or White, as Rush puts it) couple adopting a biracial child. We have also parented our two biological children, who are, of course, white (or White). I looked forward to reading this particular book over all the others because it was the story of a white mother parenting a black daughter. What more relevant experience could the author have when it comes to parenting a black or biracial child?

I was severely disappointed; by the author's ideas, her dry and incomplete writing style, and her apparent lack of common sense and real life parenting skills.

For example, Rush relates a story about her child's teacher giving "Student of the Week" awards in her the classroom. Rush interprets this as a "goal" to be "accomplished." She also interprets her daughter not receiving it as proof positive of racism in the teacher. Any real life parent, who keeps in close contact with the school and other parents, understands these kinds of awards are based not on accomplishment, but on subjective reasons such as a child has worked hard to overcome some deficiency, or a child is having a difficult time and needs a "boost," and most commonly as a "reward" for the children of parents who volunteer in the school and the classroom. Is it fair? No. Is it racism? No. But Rush, rather than explaining how public school sometimes work (and sometimes work unfairly), assures her daughter she did not receive this award because she is black and the teacher is unconsciously racist.

In fact, Rush has convinced her daughter (who is biracial, but Rush has decided she should identify entirely as black) that every negative thing that has ever happened to her is because she is black. According to Rush, no negative situation is because of the inherent unfairness of society, and especially public schools, or because Rush seems to be an irritating and dislikable parent. All negativity is due to her daughter's blackness. All negativity is due to hatred, conscious or unconscious, of people of color (and therefore hatred of her daughter).

What Rush has done, as a parent and as an author, is create her own brand of racism, blaming everything on her daughter being black, rather than looking at each situation individually and determining whether or not it was caused by racism or by something entirely unrelated to color. This kind of racism, in my opinion, is just as damaging to a child's self-esteem as the real racism that exists everywhere in our country.

What I came away with, after reading this book, was a great deal of anger at Rush for, in small part, making my job as the parent of a biracial child much more difficult. I came away with the impression of a woman with social problems and inadequacies unrelated to her biracial child, who blames her own problems and inadequacies, and people's reactions to her, on her child and her child's color. This is irresponsible parenting at best, and a gross disservice to her daughter.

I do not subscribe to the theory of "color blindness." Of course color is an integral part of any person's identity and experience. And there is a great deal of REAL racism in the world (which is NOT discussed in this book). However, the experiences related in this book smack more of an out of touch, color obsessed mother who looks for and blames any negative or perceived negative as solely the result of her child's color. And, by doing so, has furthered racism and done a great disservice to her own daughter and any child of color.

Rush has created in her child the notion that every white person will dislike and mistreat her because she is black. In my opinion, her daughter has a much greater hurdle to overcome than race and racism; she must overcome the attitude and lack of social skills of her own mother..... and no burden could be greater than that.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book should be read by everyone., January 24, 2001

By 

Susan Egan (Oberlin, OH United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Loving Across the Color Line: A White Adoptive Mother Learns About Race (Hardcover)

Very informative and interesting book. Ms. Rush covers some delicate and important issues about race. Many of them are subjects most of us don't want to think about much less talk about. As an adoptive parent I found her book eye opening and insightful. A "must read" for anyone that adopts across the color line. Her stories and insights are written in a way that makes even the most well meaning think twice about our precepts of race relations. She reveals many "unconscious acts of racism" that the White population probably would not notice. They effect people of color every day of their lives. It's a book that I'd like to see discussed in every school system. If not as a part of the curriculum at least as a study book for the teachers. Every adopted child should come with one at their placement!