Skin Deep Black Women White
Candid, poignant, provocative, and informative, the essays and stories in Skin Deep explore a wide spectrum of racial issues amidst black and white women, from self-identity and contest to childrearing and friendship. Eudora Welty contributes a bittersweet story of a one-hundred-year-old black woman whose spirit is as determined and strong as anything in nature. Bestselling author Naomi Wolf recalls her firstborn exposure to racism growing up, examining the subtle forms it may take even among well-meaning people; bell hooks writes in regards to the intersection among black women and feminist politics; and Joyce Carol Oates includes a one-act play in which racial stereotypes are reversed. Among the other writers featured in the collection are Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Susan Straight, Mary Morris, and Beverly Lowry. A groundbreaking anthology that reveals surprising perceptivities and concealed truths to a subject too many times beclouded by misperceptions and easy assumptions, Skin Deep is a major contribution to understanding our culture.
From Publishers WeeklyFeaturing writers ranging from Joyce Carol Oates to Alice Walker, this collection draws on both fiction and nonfiction to explore racial issues amongst black and white women.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From BooklistGirlfriend, you don't want to miss the pungent, probing questions and answers in this fascinating, timely volume. Four of Skin Deep's 20 pieces have antecedently appeared elsewhere: Eudora Welty's "A Worn Path," Alice Walker's "The Revenge of Hannah Kemhuff," Toni Morrison's "Recitatif," and Joyce Carol Oates' "Negative." Like these more widely known and esteemed writers, the writers of the collection's new material--Lisa Page, Naomi Wolff, Retha Powers, Beverly Lowry, Patricia Browning Griffith, Mary Morris, Jewelle Gomez, Ann Filemyr, Susan Straight, Catherine Clinton, Dorothy Gilliam, bell hooks, social workers Cathleen Gray and Shirley Bryant, and both editors--are brave, disconcerting, moving, funny, and challenging as they struggle to stare squarely at the ways American women have penetrated--and failed to penetrate--the multifarious barriers of race. This is scary territory: a landscape littered with betrayals and failures of understanding, but illuminated by precious victories and by the editors' hope that we may "both see and see beyond race," that if we "address our deviations . . . [now], the issue of race in our children's generation will be, in fact, skin deep." Mary Carroll
Review"Captures the sound, the shape and the boundaries of contemporary relationships among Black and White women."--Essence magazine
"Eloquent, challenging and most times unsettling."--Minneapolis Star Tribune
Most helpful client reviews
8 of 8 humans found the following review helpful.
 Why Is There Only One Review of This Book?
By Carmen Matthews
In the very public work that I do, I too many times hear, as I just heard yesterday, well-meaning white humans say, "The way to take care of diversity is to never mention it again."
And it is this kind of message that reminds me that we have a ways to go in race relations.
This book is a collection of stories from famous women, both white and black, in regards to their experiences with race.
While each chapter had me deeply moved, I ought to say that the chapter titled, "Contents Under Pressure: White Woman/Black History," by Catherine Clinton, was the most moving.
This is a story in regards to a white woman who teaches African-American History.
This is, a reverse discrimination story that has value for everyone to read. By her name, and her profession, she is assumed to be African-American. But she is Caucasian.
Her published work has led to galore requests to take part to speak on race relations.
But, when they meet her, in person, and see that she is not African-American, things change.
And she had to put in a tremendous amount of time, to show that she is here to stay, in spite of the resistence of others.
In the end, this professor taught her students that the thickness of your skin, and not it is color is a utile measure for success.
This is a professor whose mission lives on through her students.
I invite everyone male or female, of all races to read this book, as you think of yourself as a fly on the wall.
You will grow, beyond your wildest dreams.
5 of 5 persons found the following review helpful.
A perspective on race
By krocktx@flash.net
As we Get Started to approach the next century, race is still an crucial issue that ought to not be ignored or denied. As we live in a multiracial society, it is essential to take time out and listen to ourselves and others. This is a provocative book that ought to be read by all women who take the time to intellectually consider themselves and their role as women and mothers, sisters, neigbors, and lovers. How will we instruct our children and eachother to consider race? These essays fetch forth a great deal of harsh realizations of the boundaries that veritably discerned black and white women and what must be win a victory over if we genuinely want to unite. It is a good dose of reality that numerous of us would gain from not only reading, but thinking in regards to and discussing. The truth is awfully hard to swallow.
2 of 2 humans found the following review helpful.
Tell It Like It Is...........
By Julia Mallory
This book is the product of what happens when we may tell the truth. It was a real eye-opener and consoling in one. It let you know that you are not alone in the battle of dealing with race everyday. In a heap of way or another each story will speak to you. Every author's undertake to define their truth will help you to better understand your own reality. Great book even if you may not agree with each point of view contained within it's pages, you'll be grateful for the effort to convey the story, to say the least!
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