The Color of Our Future

by Farai Chideya

Book Overview

Two years ago, Newsweek named Farai Chideya to its Century Club of a hundred people to watch as we approached the year 2000. Beautiful, savvy, and wired for sound, she's an ideal guide to the new,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0688165303
• ISBN13: 9780688165307
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Length: 273 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

An honest open look at race

It's refreshing to see a book like this written by a younger African-American woman, instead of a much-older person far removed from what s/he might be writing about. Ms. Chideya isn't terribly too much older than the young people she interviewed for this book, and coupled with the fact that she's a person of color as well, it must have been doubtless easier for her to have been perceived as "one of them" instead of some stranger who had no clue about their everyday realities. The book's purpose is to stand notions of race on their head, to show, through the eyes of young people, what it's really like to be a member of a certain race, or to be multiracial, and what it's like to live in a community that's very multicultural or self-segregating. It's projected that by the year 2050, white people in America will be a minority, and those of other races (including those of mixed-race heritage) will be in the majority. That scares a lot of people who have lived their entire lives being part of the status quo, confident that their own kind always has been and always will be in the majority. But outside of lily-white insulated communities, the reality is that there's far more interracial mixing and interracial marriages than there ever have been in the past, and this development isn't going to change anytime soon. And as Ms. Chideya points out, the worst racial crisis isn't happening in neighborhoods or cities, but in people's minds. Once people drop the ridiculous notions that America is a "white society" and that race is strictly a black and white issue, they can move forward into the future with open minds and hearts. Among the topics Ms. Chideya covers are the future of mixed-race identity, schools where whites are the minority for once (in Los Angeles, New York City, and Johannesburg), the heartbreaking defeat of affirmative action, MTV as a cultural common denominator, Native Americans (too often completely ignored in discussions of race), the state of race in America right now, Mexican-American identity, "perfect" diversity in an imperfect world, and the sad story of Bubba and Jaime Johnson, whose newborn daughter Whitney was ordered by an all-white Baptist church to be removed from their cemetery because she was biracial, a story that happened in 1996, a time when people were supposed to be long since past the institutionalised racism of the past. The book ends with a discussion of some possible solutions to these tough complex issues, and a list of ten ways to deal with diversity so we can move towards a more perfect union. Among these suggestions are to demand better media coverage of race, know the facts about America's diversity (it's shocking how surveys show that a lot of Americans are very ignorant about the racial makeup of their own country, and how the other half really lives), follow others' lead to define their own race and community (for example, some Native Americans prefer the old term "Indian," some like the term "First

Author goes looking for racism and finds it

This is a book many people should read - either to know their friends or their enemies. Harvard trained author Farai Chideya criss-crosses the country from lily-white towns to . . . well she didn't get to ebony-black towns, but she could only cover so much in one book. America is, if her sample is random and accurate, made up of mixed marriage, dysfunctional families living in poverty and on drugs - with a little physical abuse and illegitimate residency thrown in. She is fond of parading statistics that show that whites will no longer be a majority in the mid-2000's. In fact, if we miscegenate cultures and races enough, we will not be able to tell who is what, thus all be one big happy family. I wonder. In a recent book, I wrote, "If various cultures disappear, either through ethnic cleansing or integration, we will all be the poorer . . . and much more bored." If we all become equal parts Black, White, Latino, American Indian, and Chinese, how many Michael Jordans will we produce?The author admits there are anomalies: Blacks sitting at their own tables in college dining halls and Chinese students grouping together into a college fraternity. But, she didn't see any disparity between her melting pot ideas and American Indians wanting to teach their children their own native customs and languages. I wonder what Ms. Chideya would think if she knew that the most valuable animals on farms are those with long pedigrees, not those conceived out behind the barn in a midnight frolic. What has that got to do with humans, you say? Nothing, if you believe that humans are special creations of God. Somehow, though, I can't see Ms. Chideya as a member of the Christian Right.

Brought me to tears

There are so many books that deal with race these days from a purely clinical perspective. And Chideya certainly does her research. The thesis of her book is that in 50 years--according to the best numbers from the U.S. Census--there will be more non-white Americans than whites. That's going to totally flip the script on race relations.But where she really shines is bringing out the stories of real people. I was totally brought to tears by the story of LaShunda Prescott, a woman who struggled through U.C. Berkeley while she had to help raise the child of her crack-addicted sister. She also shows a suprising amount of understanding for the economic disenfranchisement of white supremacists, though! (You have to this book to understand her point... how these folks take their beefs with America and instead of blaming big corporations and the government blame black folks and immigrants instead.)This reporter is courageous. Anybody who can hang with Klansmen and gang bangers in order to get the story is really on point.

Can you handle the truth?

Some people who read this book didn't vibe it, but that's because they can't handle the truth. Farai Chideya tells it like it is. You can tell she really gets down to the street level, interviewing teens who have crossed the US/Mexico border illegally; interviewing white supremacists and victims of hate crimes alike; interviewing folks who hate affirmative action and folks who got into college because of it. The truth about race in America is that we have a lot of growing to do. If you want the truth, read this book.

Totally enlightening!

I was thinking about race in these totally black and white ways and this book really set me straight about what's happening now and in our future. And the interviews with all the teenagrs are fascinating!