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Yet a Stranger: Why Black Americans Still Don't Feel at Home

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When discussing race relations in America the Black community often asks, "Have things really gotten any better? Are there any reasons left to believe that change will elicit a way for equal parity?" Lest we forget, black Americans should share and be given equal billing for contributions directly and indirectly resulting in the building of this great nation of ours. This should be realized despite, and because of Thomas Jefferson's contradiction that "it was self-evident truth that all men were created equal, that they were endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these were life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". Over three hundred years later race in America still flourishes within blatant circumstantial inequities that the institution of racism has permeated. No one knows this better than the author Deborah Mathis, who offers an insight to a personal view of the problems that have existed, continue to do so today, and an effort for reclamation in her book, Yet A Stranger: Why Black Americans Still Don't Feel At Home. Though the title is a mouthful, there's still issues that need to be confronted head on so that progress will be justified for what need to be done. Ms Mathis is a national syndicated columnist and former White House correspondent for The Gannett News Service with yet another offering that will join other analogies and narratives that have delved and beat this subject to death with no solutions or answers that would allow home to be more hospitable. Books of this magnitude where extensive research, in-depth interviews, and gauging the real life experiences of those that have been at the forefront of change, rarely is the catalyst to bring about the balancing of the scales. Rather, they tend to form patterns where in the company of other books, apathy sets in with status quo doing more harm than good.

To Ms Mathis' credit though, her efforts to illustrate her points for the most part are adequate, but a few flaws in my opinion, made the book predictable based on some of the incidents researched. Also, the last chapter pales in comparison to the rest of the book in that no explanatory effort was made for solutions beyond what has already been reported. Nevertheless, it does give on a greater part of the whole, the idea that the author spent quality time to give her version of why there's no room in the house to feel at home. It forces you to understand why the alienation of black America is progressive, affecting each generation through policy, custom, and if nothing else, a perception that inferiority is the norm. The chapters give an expose of various multifarious conditions and maladies known exclusive to African-Americans. It's clear from the onset that the author focuses on the lively controversies leading up to problematic issues, and the aftermath for determining interpretive analysis. She reports the reason(s) why:

· The acquittal of four white police officers of beating Rodney King was expected

· The O.J. Simpson murder trial widened the gulf between whites and blacks...and why

· Blacks felt an affinity for him to win

· Integration was the worst thing for blacks

· Affirmative Action is still needed, and why white folk deplore it

She also touches on the Ebonics debate, Multiculturalism, school vouchers, racism in the justice system, and quite a bit of emphasis on other historical vestiges that brought attention to the confrontation of prejudice and racial injustices. What would make this book stand out would be viable dialogue from interested persons within our societal makeup that would want to continue to keep these issues hot, and for this country to acknowledge a need to change and be able to use it for meaningful intent.

If when reading this book you misunderstand the underestimation of history's long term effects, you may in turn miss the point of the author's reason for asking the question why blacks are on the outside still looking in. In reading an and rating this book, I couldn't help hoping that at the end of each chapter the author would render solutions to each plight she illustrated. This glaring omission is why others would want to feel a sense of loss, even though at the end she attempts to give weak, but well-meaning ways to end the state of discontinuity which have already been explored. Readers interested in race issues will enjoy this book, but for those that demand more than just rhetorical chatter would opt for more. This book is available at local books stores. Read it, and judge for yourself whether black Americans can solve the enigma of not being welcome at home!

If the day should ever come that America succeeds
Żn heaing its racial wounds, that day will no doubt be
proceeded by a separation in our national debate
between diagnosis and prescription. Too often the
elements advanced in the making of one are used in
the polemical debate to attack the other. And much of
the debate stirred by Deborah Mathis' Yet a Stranger is
evidence of this prism in our national dialogue that
refracts and distorts reason.

And it is the diagnosis in Yet a Stranger that is
its greatest triumph. This debate stirred by this book
is evidence of how the elements on one are used to
attack the arguments of the other. Our debate on these
issues is all too often refracted through this prism
of distortion.

The point here is that reasonable people of any
ideological stripe can today applaud America's
successes, from the Emancipation Proclamation to the
Civil Rights Act, while condemning the horrors those
landmarks sought to remedy. A consensus certainly
exists here on both diagnosis and prescription.

But a consensus eludes us on the continuing struggle
for true equality and equity, as Mathis' book
effectively illustrates. Interestingly, the debate
accomplishes the same mission. In much of contemporary
black life, the hue of one's skin is equated with the
ability to pay a mortgage or cover the tab on a
sweater being examined on a store rack. In debating
Yet a Stranger, the critics will effectively ask us
to dismiss an analysis of racism's continuing menace
to education with an argument against the
effectiveness of school vouchers or their appeal to
many black parents. C'mon. In social discourse, it is
indeed OK to cast the first stone. Let's just get our
syllogisms straight beforehand.

Solving the problems Mathis examines is critical to
America's health and future. That this is the case
could probably be agreed by Rush Limbaugh and Jesse
Jackson. And then we move on.

Those sympathetic to the views and experiences of the
journalist Mathis will be probably agree with the
totality of her book. But those with a different take
on affirmative action, racial profiling or the concept
of collective guilt can gain a great deal from this
narrative as well. Sure, her prescriptions at the end
of this book, from the restoration of "Ninth Street"
neighborhoods to governmental scrutiny to chain store
credit policies may lack the power of the analysis
behind the facts with which they are proceeded in Yet
a Stranger.

But it is those facts that Mathis assembles that most
need to be absorbed and considered by all venturing
into the debate. If you must, take an imaginary eraser
to all the "prescriptions" in Yet a Stranger. There will
still be more substance than most of us can take.
Forget the medicine for now; the dżagnosis is
enough of a pill.

The reader who does this will do America a service.
Just as Mathis has done with her thoughtful survey, her
apt storytelling and her insight into so many
seemingly intractable problems.

David Judson.

Yet A Stranger: Why Black Americans Still Don't Feel At Home is a provocative account by Deborah Mathis which explores the feelings and experiences of Black Americans. Ms. Mathis candidly writes about how the experiences of Black People in America have caused a prolonged feeling of alienation which has impacted their sense of community. She asserts that the progress that has been made in race relations is not enough and more needs to be done to dispel the feelings of displacement that many African-Americans continue to feel. She gives storical context and media examples of how racism continues to be pervasive in society. She shows how today's racism, although subtle, is just as damaging as in the past. Ms. Mathis proposes ways for the Black Community to heal itself and restore a sense community that was once evident in the neighborhoods of Black people. Practical ideas such as supporting Historically Black Colleges and Universities, creating financial collaborations, recreating the village model, and reconnecting with God are suggested.

Yet a Stranger is a thorough analysis that not only states the problems, but suggests solutions.

Reviewed by Diane Marbury

After seeing Deborah Mathis on "America's Black Forum" and "Lead Story" presumptuously discussing how "we" feel about all things racial, I was not surprised by the content of her new book. She seems to think she speaks for all blacks. Or at least any whom she has not narrow-mindedly dismissed for not sharing her us-against-them world view.

I happen to be a black American from the inner city who does not blame "The White Man" for all of my problems. Nor do I buy into paranoiac they're-out-to-get-us conspiracy theories, as such mindless groupthink is better left to TV shows about junior-high-school cliques.

That irrational mindset ruins the credibility that Mathis's, despite the author's clearly extensive research. She should have discussed at least some of the points that refute the notion that America is mostly a racist hellhole in which blacks are hopelessly under siege.

I'm all for discourse on why some blacks adamantly insist on writing the country off as such, but the Mathis Method is egregiously off base. One-sided, accusatory rants about every stupid comment any white person ever made to the author simply don't cut it.

"Yet a Stranger" loses credibly right from the start as Mathis cites the Amadou Diallo shooting in New York City and the Jasper, Texas hate crime as examples of the entire country's persistent hostility toward blacks. But what about the Ken Tillery DRAGGING death in Texas in February 2002? Or the gunning down of five whites--resulting in the deaths of three--by black Pennsylvanian Ronald Taylor in 2000? And what of the fact that, according to the U.S. Justice Department, 85% of all interracial violence in America is committed by blacks against whites? Mathis's selective outrage makes her criticism of personal-responsibility advocates as displaying "ignorance" sound utterly hypocritical.

"Yet a Stranger" is filled with rambling rants and generalizations typical of a race-baiter seeking to inspire misplaced guilt in whites. Yes, some whites continue to harbor irrational prejudices and ill will toward blacks. And yes, biased treatment from the police has proved responsible for much anti-black violence over the years. But is that the REAL cause of the average black American's personal problems? Absolutely not. What a pathetic--not to mention absurd--view for people to have of themselves.

Showing approval for the ridiculous behavior of the 1992 L.A. rioter and expressing glee over O.J.'s acquittal simply because he's a "brother"--despite the overwhelming evidence against him are blatantly irresponsible coming from someone who purports to inform her readers.

Most white people that I know don't get it. They just can't imagine what it's like to have their car stopped and be arrested for being black. They can't imagine what it's like to be followed around in a department store by a member of the security staff. They can't imagine what it's like to have their kids blamed for altercations regardless of who started it. They can't imagine what it feels like to always get the worst assignments on the job. They've never heard of the concept of unearned privilege of which they are the invisible beneficiaries.

"Yet a Stranger: Why Black Americans Still Don't Feel at Home" makes sure the reader, if he or she didn't get it before, gets it now. It obliges readers to take a cold empathy bath in the humiliating everyday experiences of Black Americans. For that reason, it is not an easy read and not a fun read if you're white. After reading this book, we no longer have the excuse that, well, we just didn't know, we just didn't realize that here in the 21st century things were still so much more difficult for Black Americans than for us. The implicit challenge of the book is: now that we know and can no longer plead ignorance, what are we going to do with that knowledge? How are we going to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem?

This book makes no attempt to be even-handed. Unlike Senator Barack Obama's recent speech on race, there is no section on white grievances and frustations and no Cosby-like admonitions for the black community to address and solve its own problems. Those topics, while important, are not what this book is about. Its target audience is us white folks, and its objective is helping us to lift the veil of our ignorance through an experience of empathy.

Deborah Mathis has written a painfully graphic, valuable book. But published in 2002, ancient history in the publishing industry, its light is under a bushel basket. Too bad. This book should be required reading for every white person, young and old. How else will we get it?

I purchased this book hoping for a meaningful analysis and discussion of the alienation of many black Americans from mainstream political and social culture. What I found instead was just another rant in which any attitude or action not in tune with Mathis' own political views is deemed racist. Certainly, there are a few instances recounted in the book in which Ms. Mathis takes justifiable offense at comments of insensitive or ignorant persons -- haven't we all -- but these are few and far between; but she doesn't do much to make the case she starts out to make that American society is unwelcoming to black Americans.

Anyone can shoehorn events into an ideological or racialist view if they want to. This book may be an example of African-American alienation, but it's certainly not an analysis or explanation of it.

Ms. Mathis is certainly an engaging writer, which makes her book a quick read, but don't look here for any understanding or enlightenment. This book seems to tell us more about Ms. Mathis than about American society.

Let me sum up this book..White people, please say you are sorry for slavery..Please love me..Why don't you love me? I hate you for not loving me..

This book is an excellent study on a common psychosis that has beset a large number of black people in this country. Though she is a successful writer, professor and commentator, her self-esteem weighted down by what "white people" think. She abdicates the fate and future of an entire race of people to "white people". They have enough problems of their own.

The way Deborah tells it, I need to be watching over my shoulder for white people every second. I think she is living in the movie "I know what you did last summer".

Are there any black writers with some good news? On a positive note, she writes well. If you are white and she her around, please give her hug for me.