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Beyond The Whiteness of Whiteness: Memoir of a White Mother of Black Sons
by Jane Lazarre, Jaime Manrique
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Duke University Press (1996-09)
ISBN: 0822318261
EAN: 9780822318262
Dewy Decimal #: 306.8743
Hardcover: 168 pages
SKU: V060YDM
Condition: Used: Good
Comments: Ex-Library, with the usual library markings. Has Dust Jacket. 100% satisfaction guaranteed. All orders include an e-Book about starting your own Internet Business in PDF format. FREE Domestic DELIVERY CONFIRMATION! We ship daily Mon-Sat and will let you know when your item has shipped along with your e/DC number. [HI, AK, PR, VI, GUAM, SAIPAN & West Coast customers, please use Expedited Shipping, otherwise it may take longer than the estimated 14 business days.] Items are from a smoke free and air conditioned environment.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
“I am Black,” Jane Lazarre’s son tells her. “I have a Jewish mother, but I am not ‘biracial.’ That term is meaningless to me.” She understands, she says—but he tells her, gently, that he doesn’t think so, that she can’t understand this completely because she is white. Beyond the Whiteness of Whiteness is Jane Lazarre’s memoir of coming to terms with this painful truth, of learning to look into the nature of whiteness in a way that passionately informs the connections between herself and her family. A moving account of life in a biracial family, this book is a powerful meditation on motherhood and racism in America, the story of an education into the realities of African American culture.
Lazarre has spent over twenty-five years living in a Black American family, married to an African American man, birthing and raising two sons. A teacher of African American literature, she has been influenced by an autobiographical tradition that is characterized by a speaking out against racism and a grounding of that expression in one’s own experience—an overlapping of the stories of one’s own life and the world. Like the stories of that tradition, Lazarre’s is a recovery of memories that come together in this book with a new sense of meaning. From a crucial moment in which consciousness is transformed, to recalling and accepting the nature and realities of whiteness, each step describes an aspect of her internal and intellectual journey. Recalling events that opened her eyes to her sons’ and husband’s experience as Black Americans—an operation, turned into a horrific nightmare by a doctor’s unconscious racism or the jarring truths brought home by a visit to an exhibit on slavery at the Richmond Museum of the Confederacy—or her own revealing missteps, Lazarre describes a movement from silence to voice, to a commitment to action, and to an appreciation of the value of a fluid, even ambiguous, identity. It is a coming of age that permits a final retelling of family history and family reunion.
With her skill as a novelist and her experience as a teacher, Jane Lazarre has crafted a narrative as compelling as it is telling. It eloquently describes the author’s delight at being accepted into her husband’s family and attests to the power of motherhood. And as personal as this story is, it is a remarkably incisive account of how perceptions of racial difference lie at the heart of the history and culture of America.
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Customer Reviews
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Needs shame couseling
Rating  (1)
Date: 2008-06-29
The author mentions more than once that she is ashamed to be white, and therein lies the impetus for this entire book. With this information you can see her trying more to come to terms with being white than trying to understand African Americans. Why she is ashamed of events that happened before her lifetime is worthy of psychoanalytic investigation and not for a memoir about race. My two best friends are both black, and I learned nothing about them from this. This author is flakey in her understanding of herself and the world around her. If you really want to learn about African Americans, read the Autobiography of Malcolm X. That at least deals with the kinds of things that his people think and feel, rather than what some white woman feels shame about.
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Excellent book!
Rating  (5)
Date: 2005-06-29
5 out of 6 customers found this reveiw helpful
I love this book and this woman because of the honesty. My father is white, my mother is black. Let me tell you, when one of your parents are black-you are black. Jane tells you this in so many words. This whole biracial thing is a lie because American blacks are a multiracial and biracial people because our blood has been mixed since we were brought from Africa. I love the fact that Jane is honest with herself and understands that her sons are black and they must be taught the pride in that. She is absolutely correct to ingratiate herself in to black culture because that is the society her kids will forever live in and she must understand and be a part of that-after all, she is their mother. Most people won't be able to wrap their minds around many of Jane's ideas, but they should definately try. Life changing book, if you haven't read it. Be honest and be real.
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A very disturbed woman
Rating (1)
Date: 2002-04-04
6 out of 25 customers found this reveiw helpful
Let's get something straight right up front; The book is well written but its' message will leave anyone not suffering from mental illness in a state of rage.The author is not just white but is more specifically Jewish which puts her claims of white privilege on their head. Here's another interesting nugget of information: She writes she was raised as a Communist by her father and imbued with the ideas of Marxism. Couple this with the fact she grew up tortured by not having her mother,died young,and you got the makings of someone with SERIOUS mental problems. Shorthly after the birth of her two sons she begins to lose her identity (hell I'm being nice, she outright becomes ashamed of 'being white) and begins to adopt the racial identity of being black; she makes the argument she is because her sons are black and her husband is black so she magically becomes black by association and ultra close approximation. Her pedantic is absolutely intolerable and reaches its' zenith when she asserts whites owe blacks such a huge debt that the only way we as whites can ever repay that debt is to stop being white (one is left with the ditinct impression she means as a race altogether). The only agreeable truth in this book comes at the end when she realizes her two sons are black and (thankfully, from her point of view) not white; she originally believed them to be biracial,a term she comes to realize is laughable and a fantasy. There is truth in this. Remember the recent 2002 Movie awards when Hally Berry won best actress? Hally's mother is white,her father is black. Which half accepted that award? Which half does Hally Berry see herself as?
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RACE?????
Rating  (4)
Date: 2001-04-11
All you people who write reviews on how great this book is especially on issues of race and gender and ethnicity etc etc did you even read the book??? SHE SAYS VERY CLEAR THAT RACE DOESNT EXSIST....most people know that...so how can she write so well on race if she says right off the top that there is no such thing???? hmmmmmFor all those who havent read the book it is very interesting...im sure if she could sew her lips to bell hooks bum she would :)
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A brightly shining book
Rating (5)
Date: 2000-08-29
9 out of 10 customers found this reveiw helpful
This book succeeds on two levels at the same time. Jane Lazarre has written a beautiful memoir of her life as a white woman who first marries a black man and then becomes the mother of black sons. She has reflected on her experience, and given it deep meaning, which she shares in this book, as well.This is an incredibly powerful book, which goes right to the heart of what it means to be white in America. Lazarre's experiences are her own, but the lessons she draws from her life are important lessons for all of us, especially those of us who are white. I recommend this book without reservation to anyone who wants to think again about race, ethnicity, and integrity.
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