Sweeter the Juice: A Family Memoir in Black and White

by Shirlee Taylor Haizlip

Book Overview

The Sweeter the Juice is a provocative memoir that goes to the heart of our American identity.

Shirlee Taylor Haizlip, in an effort to reconcile the dissonance between her black persona and her undeniably multiracial heritage, started on a journey of discovery that took her over thousands of miles and hundreds of years. While searching for her mother's family, Haizlip confronted the deeply intertwined but often suppressed tensions...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671899333
• ISBN13: 9780671899332
• Release Date: January 1995
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Quite Different

This book is hard to describe but also complicated. It is an old era problem that once existed. There is so much dialogue about those who could and would pass for white and those who were on the border line. There are also consequences if you are caught but daily living a lie and trying to rewrite your race is a daunting task. There are some dialogues about those who hated their skin color and those who tried to level the even field by marrying someone darker or trying to fit in where they thought they should have been raised. Even in this day and age, Colorism is still an issue that rears ugly head. This is my assumption about this book. The author spends so much time talking about many descendants that we cannot see and she tries to go down memory lane with memories that it is hard for us to understand or comprehend since there are so many names and locations that most of the time, I find myself lost in this book. She spends too much time reminiscent of her privileged life which becomes boring. I find that the novel is confusing because it is not in chronological order and jumps backs and forth. I tried to imagine what she looked like since she said she was often mistaken for being black but when she lived in the Virgin Islands, she talks about her Afro. So, is she saying she went from straight hair to an Afro because if someone saw her with an Afro, she certainly would not be able to pass for white. Also confusing is the aunt's name Grace that she had a hard time trying to find because she was living as a white woman and would not accept her Afro American heritage. From this part of the story, it became a true bore and ended in a long-outdrawn story. Why couldn't she show herself in the present so we could see how she looks and more childlike pictures so we can get an idea of what she might have looked like. Throughout this story, I still couldn't fathom what she looks like. A Black woman like me just couldn't identify with this saga.

Very enjoyable, while still intense book....

I enjoyed this book from cover to cover. Sure, some of it was confusing, like some said, but what part of genealogy isn't confusing? My own genealogy confuses ME! :o) This book was wonderful! I think the author did a wonderful job in addressing this little spoken of topic. I was recommended this book after I found out that my family had African American roots, & so this book hit home with me. It aided me through an emotional journey...answering many of the questions such as: "Why so many secrets?" It also helped me to understand that some of my family members will never in their lifetimes will willing to openly talk about this subject, but the book confirmed my feelings that it's their loss. Thanks & kudos to the author!!!

Lost Family

I just read this book. It was very moving and insightful. It was so sad that Margaret Taylor, Shirlee's mother, was abandoned by her father,sister and brothers, and endured such a difficult childhood. It took over 70 years for Margaret to find her sister! I think that Grace Cramer's life was more tragic, perhaps, because she blocked out so many memories and isolated herself. I would think she could have at least written her sister, once in 70 years! even if she was nervous about revealing her heritage to other people. It was wonderful to hear that Grace's grandchildren had a happy meeting with Shirlee.The photos are great and the stories about the Taylors, Morrisses etc. are inspiring. It was fascinating to read about African American life in New England and the South. I look forward to reading the book about the Haizlip marriage.

A first rate piece of writing

The author, Shirlee Taylor Haizlip, is of mixed race parentage, her father more dark skinned black than her mother. Her mother, the youngest of her family, was abandoned by her brothers and sisters and her father, a mulatto, her mulato mother having died. Most of her surving relatives (those of Mrs. Haizlip's mother) moved away to other places and passed for white. The last child of the family, she was a painful reminder to them of the black experience they inherited. This abandonment happened around 1916. She passed into several gaurdianships and then ended up in the home of a light skinned couple, a dentist and lady who was slowly loosing her sanity. Her female gaurdian spent most of her time covering her furniture with white sheets,pulling down the blinds of the house and running around in rags. Her mother eventually met Julian, a part white and part Indian, a divorcee son of a prominent black minister. They married and Julian Jr. settled in as a pastor to the small black community in the working class town of Ansonia Connecticut.In the pictures provided in the book, Margaret and her mother look rather Mediteranian. Margaret and Julian their three children, plus some foster children, lived an exceedingly happy middle class lifelife. There were summer homes to vacation, pleasant trips to Baptist national conventions, regular shopping trips, a vibrant social life, guests at home from NAACP leaders to Jackie Robinson. Racial problems were a little part of their life in this community. The children, except for the only sun Julian Jr. nicknamed "Brother," one of the few problems in their lives, were very successful in school,full of extra-curricular activities, camping, clubs, and so on. Not exactly the life of the average black family in the 1940's. The author would marry a gentleman named Harold Haizlipp, attend Ivy league schools. They were amongst the elite of New York, sitting on a bunch of trustee boards, knowing all the famous intellectuals, and it was in such genteel circles that she and her husband conducted activism against racism. One interesting incident was a party thrown by the Haizlips in apparently the late 60's in New York. Attendees included Betty Shabaz, widow of Malcom X and a daughter of Nelson Rockefeller. A white woman, apparently some sort of civil rights worker, was brought along with one of Shirlee's friends. She apparently was so overcome by the interracial socilization going on, in addition to the nature of the party which called for guests to wear costumes revealing as much skin as possible (inspired by the play "Hairspray). The woman gripped around Harold's Cousin tightly and started screaming that the black males there wished to rape her before she was subdued and taken to a mental hospital. Harold was commissioner of education in the Virgin Islands from 1971 to 1980. Shirlee had to fret about things like worrying about wearing the same dress as Queen Elizabeth when she met the latter. She became manager of the local

This book tells us what United States is really based on.

I had to read the book for my College English class and I thorouhly enjoyed it. Its a must read if you really want to get into the old American structure of Racism and Discrimination. The book tells us something that we can never get out of History textbooks. Its truly a moving true story. I loved it.

The Blacker the Berry

Since I saw you on Oprah several years ago, I have been wanting to thank you for making this unparalleled contribution to our nation's history and literature. Books like yours will free us from racism, because they tell the truth despite generations of lies. I read Sweeter the Juice when I was in the 8th grade and it really shows me just how ridiculous this black-white-gray-beige thing is in our country. This book shows what a horrible society we are in when we force families to draw racial dividing lines on their love for their children and grandchildren. Your mother is an amazing human being to have endured so much rejection and loneliness as a child and then to put that all aside, and provide a loving home for you and your siblings. Although the pictures of my faded brown ancestors look very much like your family's, I was raised in a family that has always acknowledged their African heritage. I have heard stories of distant uncles that have passed in order to ge! t jobs, but they returned to their black wives when they came home. This book shows me how fortunate I am that my grandparents didn't use the "benefit" of their blue, green, and hazel eyes to escape their true ethnicity. I have been raised in a family that has always taken great pride in being the first black people to accomplish something in their field of expertise. They enjoy the struggle, because it has always meant that with merely the power of their life, they have dismantled the system and created enough leverage for other blacks to persevere. Your book is so great because it gets people to think of themselves and their ancestry in a more three dimensional way. It stops people from only claiming the ancestors that they most resemble. It makes people appreciate all of the million of lives that had to exist in order for them to simply be born. When I came from reading the book I didn't feel like I wanted to be color blind, but rather appreciative that I live! d and was a product of so many different cultures. The p! art that I love is when you talk about how something like 95% ( I forgot the exact figure), of white Americans have black ancestry. That is one statistic I have been quoting ever since I read that page. And you should see how many of my white listeners seem to be praying they are apart of that remaining 5%. I rarely put this book down. Thank you again for your years of research for this book. You have helped to enlighten countless individuals and families not to mention the nation.