A review by miam
Black White and Jewish by Rebecca Walker
3.0
On growing apart from a white friend:
"I feel every inch of our separation, miss her every time I choose to go with my black friends instead of with her. I wonder what she is doing when I wake up alone in my house on Saturday mornings, wanting to call her, wanting to be close the way we had been but not knowing how to cross that divide that is drawn somewhere I can't locate and by someone who doesn't seem to be me. It is more than growing apart, what happens between me and Lena, it is not knowing how to grow together, not knowing how to bring her into the world that is slowly claiming me, marking me, not knowing how to teach her how to walk and talk so that she can fit into my world, not knowing how to let her be her and fit in without doing any goddamn thing."
On making fun of a white friend in suburban NY to a mixed friend from SF:
"I laugh with Theresa as I say this but in the pit of my stomach I feel some guilt, like I am betraying Allison, choosing sides because it's convenient. After Theresa leaves I am exhausted but relieved. I love her but it is too hard to be the translator, the one in between, the one serving as the walkway between two worlds."
"By now I am well trained in not breaking the code, not saying something too white around black people, or too black around whites. It's easier to be quiet, aloof, removed than it is to slip and be made fun of for liking the wrong thing, talking the wrong way, being the wrong person, the half-breed freak."
On giving advice to a monoracial parent of a mixed-race daughter:
"People are going to question your daughter no matter what, I say. She may as well be armed and prepared to fight back with what is, rather than what those people wish was."
"I feel every inch of our separation, miss her every time I choose to go with my black friends instead of with her. I wonder what she is doing when I wake up alone in my house on Saturday mornings, wanting to call her, wanting to be close the way we had been but not knowing how to cross that divide that is drawn somewhere I can't locate and by someone who doesn't seem to be me. It is more than growing apart, what happens between me and Lena, it is not knowing how to grow together, not knowing how to bring her into the world that is slowly claiming me, marking me, not knowing how to teach her how to walk and talk so that she can fit into my world, not knowing how to let her be her and fit in without doing any goddamn thing."
On making fun of a white friend in suburban NY to a mixed friend from SF:
"I laugh with Theresa as I say this but in the pit of my stomach I feel some guilt, like I am betraying Allison, choosing sides because it's convenient. After Theresa leaves I am exhausted but relieved. I love her but it is too hard to be the translator, the one in between, the one serving as the walkway between two worlds."
"By now I am well trained in not breaking the code, not saying something too white around black people, or too black around whites. It's easier to be quiet, aloof, removed than it is to slip and be made fun of for liking the wrong thing, talking the wrong way, being the wrong person, the half-breed freak."
On giving advice to a monoracial parent of a mixed-race daughter:
"People are going to question your daughter no matter what, I say. She may as well be armed and prepared to fight back with what is, rather than what those people wish was."