Ethnic & Race Relations, United States Studies, Ethnic & Minority Studies - United States, Discrimination & Prejudice

Race, an Anthology in the First Person

Name: Race, an Anthology in the First Person
Author: Bart Schneider
ISBN: 9780517705469

by Bart Schneider

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Overview

What is your race? In September 1994, The Hungry Mind Review's readers responded to this and nineteen other race-related questions in the periodical's now-renowned Race questionnaire. It was during the compilation of that particular issue that editor Bart Schneider recognized that Americans were ready for, and needed to have, a frank discussion about race.

Inspired by the momentum that September 1994 issue generated, Schneider compiled Race: An Anthology in the First Person. In a range of twenty first-person idioms, some of the finest American contemporary writers and social leaders explore the issue of race. The power of the first person voice that drives this collection is in its directness and simplicity, says Schneider: it's you talking to me, me to you. It's Reverend Cecil Williams preaching to hundreds on a Sunday morning in San Francisco's Glide Church. It's Audre Lorde speaking to a women's conference in Connecticut. It's John Edgar Wideman talking in letter, and in spirit, to his son in prison. Listening closely to the human voice can keep us human.

Race continues what the questionnaire started by delivering direct and honest accounts of how race can impact an individual's life and alter the course of his of her future. To approach with passionate personal testimony a territory as fraught with suffering and shame, guilt and indifference, rhetoric and amnesia, is to stake a claim, explains Schneider. It is to demand a place in which we can talk to each other about who we are and what we hope America might one day become. Race will open your eyes, expand your mind, and may finally be a way for us to get the conversationgoing.

About the Author, Bart Schneider

Bart Schneider is the editor of The Hungry Mind Review. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In May 1994, Schneider ran a questionnaire about the effect of race on readers' lives in the magazine he edits, Hungry Mind Review. The responses evolved into an issue of the magazine, which in turn inspired this book. But the pieces here are not the responses of the average white, middle-class, well-educated liberal Hungry Mind Review reader. Whether they are original pieces, previously published Hungry Mind articles or book excerpts (from John Edgar Wideman's Fatheralong, Luis Rodriguez's Always Running, Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s Colored People, for example), they are by heavy hitters. Richard Rodriguez considers the difficulty of teaching in the multicultural classroom, where reading Sherlock Holmes involves stopping at every sentence to define meerschaum and bell pull and dressing gown. John Powell recalls a discussion on the Million Man March and explains that while he lives a middle-class life, he and his son "return to the heart of the black community" for haircuts. Peggy McIntosh's examination of white privilege (which, she ultimately decides, should be more accurately labeled white dominance) includes a long list of items such as "I can choose blemish cover or bandages in `flesh' color and have them more or less match my skin." Bharati Mukherjee recalls the strong ancestral identity she wore in Calcutta and describes herself today as "an American without hyphens." Gates analyzes the trial of O.J. Simpson in the context of a culture in which "`official' news has proved untrustworthy." Leslie Marmon Silko tells tales of the Border Patrol, who not only raid public high schools to remove dark-skinned students but are suspicious of clergy "who wear ethnic clothing or jewelry, and women who wear very long hair or very short hair (they could be nuns)." Race is a touchy and difficult subject (Schneider himself admits to fear of "entering a messy territory in which it seemed nothing useful could be said"). It is a messiness that's reflected in the diversity and perplexity of many of these essays. (Feb.)

Library Journal

What is race? How does it define who we are and how we experience the world? In May 1994, Schneider, editor of the Hungry Mind Review, published a questionnaire about racial perceptions to gather answers to those questions. The responses are collected here in 20 essays by such writers and lecturers as Susan Straight, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Michael Dorris, and Ira Glasser. Some essays are powerful personal examinations about race, childhood, and understanding; others are uneven and less effective. This book serves as an introduction to current thinking about race in America while also stimulating readers to examine their own ideas and assumptions on the subject. Recommended for all libraries.Nora R. Harris, Marin Cty. Free Lib., Corte Madera, Cal.