Beyond the Whiteness-CL

by Jane Lazarre

Book Overview

"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." In this moving memoir, Jane Lazarre, the white Jewish mother of now adult... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0822318261
• ISBN13: 9780822318262
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Length: 168 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

a wonderful book everyone should read

This is a thoughtful, well written, well considered book. Anyone who is interested in the subject and has a sincere desire to learn and grow will appreciate this book.

A brightly shining book

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.

Informative and enlightening

As the mother of a biracial child, I was able to relate to Jane Lazarre-White's experiences. Much of her writing struck me with great familiarity. One thing that she repeatedly addressed was the shame she felt due to the privilege her "whiteness" afforded her. This I could not relate to or understand. As a white female, I am never ashamed of who I was brought into this world to be. I think, instead, that we should be ashamed that the same privilege is not afforded to all. The inequities between racial and social classes is so incredibly divisive; however, we need to ensure that ALL PEOPLE are afforded equalilty and fairness as opposed to stripping it from those who already receive it. Jane Lazarre-White is obviously a well-educated woman...just goes to show us that although we can feed our minds with boundless history on other cultures, we cannot escape our own identity. I hope that Jane Lazarre-White can accept her own identity while embracing the culture of her husband and sons...as we will all leave this world the same "color" in which we entered it!

This book is incredible!

Jane Lazarre echoes my own thoughts and feelings when she writes of the "invisibility of whiteness". I too am a white woman married to a black man. I will never feel the firsthand racism that my husband or our children will feel. Like the author, I can slip away from racism at any time, alone on the street, I am simply a white woman, with my family I become an oddity, something for strangers to stare at. By myself, my whiteness makes me invisible. Jane Lazarre explains this in a compelling, moving manner. This book will definatly open the eyes of many a reader.

a moving and cutting edge book on race in the U.S.

I picked up Beyond the Whiteness of Whiteness because I was curious. I couldn't put it down because I was overwhelmed. As an Italian-American, I have spent a great deal of time considering the construction of whiteness and its effect on ethnicity, culture and race. Many of the pieces I read on whiteness are written with the intent to complicate an ethnicity, to make it more than "just white". There has not been enough conversation on the complexities of whiteness and white privilege. Jane Lazarre does what most of the other books haven't done: writes about whiteness after developing an intimate relationship with Blackness. This puts her in a very different position than someone, like me, whose whiteness is often understood only in relation to other white people. I read this book and found myself trembling. Race is a subject that I spend a lot of time thinking about, writing about, and wondering about. What this book managed to do was get me past what I think I know and pull me into another place entirely. A bone body place. This book needs to be read by those whites who say that racism has melted away in the U.S. and by those whites who think they have read and understood as much as they need to. This book will change you.