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Whispers on the Color Line: Rumor and Race in America

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We've all heard the rumors. The rumors that Tommy Hilfiger is a racist. The rumors that Liz Claiborne is a Satinist. The rumors that KFC serves fried rats and that's why it can no longer legally be called Kentucky Fried Chicken. And most of us probably take these rumors with, at least, a grain of salt. Believability issues asside, from where do these rumor stem? What is the meaning behind them?

Those are the questions Fine and Turner attempt to answer, and their answers are quite informative. These rumors, when analyzed, tell us quite a bit about race relations. They allow people to communicate feelings that they otherwise would not feel comfortable communicating.

I've read pretty much every book I ever got my hands on when it came to Urban Legends, but this one is quite possibly the most scholarly. Instead of just parroting the rumors and tracing the origins, it goes into depth about WHY the rumors are believable and what it says about race relations in the US.

If you're interested in urban legends and want something a little meatier, this book is an intelligent treat. It's denser than most books on the same subject, but it's also more rewarding.

Drawing upon more than twenty years of study and analysis, by Gary Fine (Professor of Sociology, Northwestern University) and Patricia Turner (Vice-Provost of Undergraduate Studies and Professor of African American and African Studies, University of California, Davis) Whispers On The Color Line: Rumor And Race In America is a superbly presented, collaborative treatise on narrative folklore prevelent in contemporary American society in the form of legends and stories informally circulated among the general public, and which have served to confuse and reinforce misinformation regarding a wide range of social issues. These are tales traveling mostly by word-of-mouth and focusing a diversity of subjects ranging from alleged governmental conspiracies, to possible food tampering, to the foibles of celebrities. An impressive, seminal, and scholarly work, Whispers On The Color Line addresses how these gossip ladened tales reflect attitudes that blacks and whites have about each other, and how such stories serve a pervasive social purpose of "expressing the inexpressible. Whispers On The Color Line is a ground breaking work and highly recommended for Contemporary Sociology, Social Anthropology, African-American Studies, and American Popular Culture Studies supplemental reading lists and academic reference collections.