Rebecca Walker (1) (1969–)

This autobiography about the daughter of an interracial couple-father Jewish and white and mother is black. The economy of the writing is spellbindingly poetic. After her parents’ divorce and Rebecca feels like a remnant. An eerie scene where it’s the last time she’ll be in the bathroom when her father is bathing and she is watching. Rebecca wants to be known as a not a black girl, to be able to pass as white. She begs her mother not to come to her performance in the play The Wizard of Oz because then everyone will know she is black. There is a beautiful line-she and her stepmother are doing battle for her father’s soul-scratching the dirt off pale Jewish roots she didn’t know her father had. Unfortunately, the remainder of the book turns into a tell all about all the boys she slept with. Despite her confused identity between being black and white, her Jewishness is hardly spoken up. A few mentions towards the end. Very unsatisfying.… (meer)

beautiful and moving exploration of identity and belonging, of race and where we fit in and how we include/exclude each other and ourselves. the shifting memories and the changing perception and understanding of self, based on who she was around and where she was, was really poignant.

this is really well written. my only quibble is that it was often hard to know the time period she was writing about, and as she was kind of forced into maturity before her time, i never knew how old she was - i was constantly assuming she was much older - until she'd say so. and then i'd have to recalibrate everything i'd just read because i'd found out she was much younger than i'd thought.

other than that, the writing is fantastic and the ideas profound. i really, really liked this.

and she made me understand something i never had before:
"...and when I ask Jodi or Pam why people are sometimes quiet or reserved around me, they say that I am intimidating, which doesn't really answer my question but gives me a general idea of how I am perceived. It doesn't occur to me that intimidating might be another word for black." and then: "Instead of intimidating, the word white people have used to describe what they find unsettling about me, Michael says I am snobby, the term black people use."… (meer)