Customer Reviews

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

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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.

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.

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!

I bought this book because it was a reading for class. But having read it, I am glad I read it. At times, I thought that the author was being a bit too paranoid, but I eventually realized that racism is a problem that goes deeper then what our eyes can see.

It is too easy to say one is not being racist, but this book puts it into a new perspective. Are you truly fair to everyone, or do you unconsciously view the world with stereotypes while claiming to be color-blind?

I hoped this book would offer help to adoptive families. It does not. I felt the author was hasty in deciding that the majority of issues coming up in life were race related. One story in particular shows that her daughter is learning the same as she uses the "race card" easily herself.

The subtle, pervasive nature of racism is captured by the mother of a bi-racial child. Sharon Rush reveals the debillitating effects of prejudice so often caused by people with good intentions. "Loving...", to this white reader, was an eye-opener and a call to action. The message delivered in this well-written, true life story, is for all who seek a better understanding of the insidious nature of racism revealed in everyday events.

This is a book that should be read by everyone, regardless of color. It provides the reader with a moving, in-depth portrayal and analysis of a white woman seeing the world for the first time through the eyes of black person-her adopted daughter. It is a very open, honest account that reveals how even without knowing it we are capable of inflicting damage upon others if we are unaware of what we are doing.

The civil rights battle has come to an apparent deadlock, and this book has the potential to help move it forward. In reading this book, a white can gain a greater appreciation for the daily blows a black person receives that a white would never notice, and a black reader can be given hope that white America is capable of resolving the race problem. We see how the concept of color-blindness, desperately insisting that everyone is the same, is doomed to fail, and we must instead be positively color-concious, recognizing and appreciating the color differences that obviously exist between each other.

It is simply not enough in this day and age to say, "Blacks aren't legally barred from doing anything a white can't do. If they aren't advancing, then it clearly is not society's fault" and then wash our hands of the problem. No, what we MUST do instead is to stretch our minds and look, really look, at what the current situation is for black people. Seventy percent of all African-american men between 18-29 have been incarcerated. Health and unemployment statistics in black communities across the country have plummeted to Depression era levels.

This cannot all be viewed as "their" fault. Clearly, something larger is crushing upon black community, something isolated legislative measures from days long past simply can't do anything about. We as a society are doing something fundamentally wrong, something that is destroying any notion that our country is a fair and tolerant one. What kind of tolerant country imprisons seventy percent of its most prominent minority? What kind of country, while indundated with wealth and power, leaves a huge segment of its population behind in the dust because of their color? If we are to entertain any notion of the USA being as wonderful as a country as we desperately hope that it is, then we must make sure that it is a wonderful country for ALL of its citizens, not just the majority. If we fail to do so, we fail ourselves because then we must either stay ignorant or lie and hold fast to the belief that this country is good and just. If we succeed, we come that much closer to living in a truly free society, and realizing the dream that has awaited this nation for so long.

If and when this does happen, it will be because of people such as Sharon Rush, who transcended her entire sense of self in order to learn from the suffering of a child what only true love and compassion can teach--differences exist, how we react to them, however, is up to us.

My hope was that this book would shed some new light on a vexing problem. It does not. Throughout, the author is feeling sorry for herself. She took on a problematic adoption, and seems totally unprepared to face the truth. People, the world over, are racist, or sexist, or religionist. In-group, out-group mind set is part of the human genetic makeup. Look at Africa; look at the middle east; look at Ireland.

And blacks are as racist as the whites. Maybe more so, today. White attempts to bridge the gap are rebuffed. Snide remarks by blacks about "liberal" whites are hurtful too.

In addition, I think the professor has bent over backwards looking for racism. Some of her attacks on well meaning educators resulted in negative consequences to her child. I think that she might be labeled as paranoid in some of her accusations.

The long critique of " color blindness " is absurd. It is the ideal to which we should aspire.

Finally, Dr.Rush, I think you are doing your daughter more harm than good with this inflammatory screed.