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Title: It's the Little Things: Everyday Interactions That Anger, Annoy, and Divide the Races by Lena Williams ISBN: 0-15-601348-7 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 07 January, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.12 (16 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Insightful but not truly helpful
Comment: I read Ms. Williams' book to better understand racism in this country as experienced and described by Black people. (I am an Asian American woman and recognize that my own experiences with racism and oppression are unique to me and, to some extent, to my specific racial/ethnic group.)
Her book will definitely provide you with some sense of how some Black people experience life in this country. And for that, the book is both an opener for the eyes and the soul.
You may be very surprised at what angers, amuses, and discomforts Black people. (I myself learned many new things that I would not otherwise have known.) You may think that many things are due to mistaken assumptions or false understandings of "White people." (That's certainly true enough, something that Ms. Williams on occasion admits to being a problem.)
But I promise you: If you read this book with open eyes and an open soul, you will never view encounters with Black people--your own and those of other people around you--the same way again.
It doesn't really matter if the beliefs, perceptions, and assumptions of the Black people quoted in the book are true or if you think they're true. Some of them are not. What does matter (and why you should care) is that there are a myriad of things that White people do--consciously and unconsciously--that really angers Black people. And as long as they continue to exist and anger Black people, we as a country won't get very far ahead in "race relations" and healing ourselves from racism.
Other readers have identified problems with Ms. Williams' book. At times, Ms. Williams' sentiments do sound petty and unrelated to the topic at hand. Ms. Williams does not bother to consider how other issues like gender, class (a big issue that, ironically enough, she does not recognize in herself or her friendship circle), etc. also affect the experiences of both Whites and Blacks. The book is anecdotal and would have benefited greatly from an analytical methodology. The experiences described in the book are from a very select group of people who she met through a series of focus groups and primarily from her friendship circle. Ms. Williams provides no solutions or strategies for what she describes.
But, for all those problems and faults, the book is still worth reading. (It is surprisingly easy reading for being such a potentially difficult and sore subject.)
If her book makes you rethink the way we interact with each other and Black people, then it's done more than it's share of work towards increasing dialogue between people and races. And if it makes you rethink that, then I don't think it's too much more to make people actually change the way they interact with people from different races.
Rating: 4
Summary: it's NOT supposed to be a solution...
Comment: but it IS supposed to make you think.
I read the entire book, including the afterword where she says she TRIED to get more white people to agree to contribute...even going so far as having her white friends guarantee their anonomity, but no dice. I agree with those who said the book is a tad one sided, but you have to work with what you have, a concept that should be common to ALL people, regardless of race.
At any rate, I thought this was an excellent book and Ms. William's goal of making the reader think was met with me.
Rating: 4
Summary: Wistful and insightful
Comment: Ms. Williams repeats throughout the book that hers is just one opinion and that she does not represent all Blacks in America. With that in mind, I, as a white male, found it to be an intriguing glance into the minds of specific people. To be honest, I never gave thought to having hair that can be tossed with a flick of the head, or to the way some Blacks may feel about giving up space on a sidewalk.
The book is certainly no sociological breakthrough, but it opens up public discourse on something that is almost a taboo topic today. If we had multiple books like this written be people of different races/ethnicities, perhaps more people could understand each other.
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Title: Somebodies and Nobodies: Overcoming the Abuse of Rank by Robert W. Fuller ISBN: 086571486X Publisher: New Society Pub Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: Where We Stand: Class Matters by Bell Hooks ISBN: 041592913X Publisher: Routledge Pub. Date: October, 2000 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Brown: The Last Discovery of America by Richard Rodriguez ISBN: 0142000795 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 25 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together In The Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race: A Psychologist Explains the Development of Racial Identity, Revised edition by Beverly Daniel Tatum ISBN: 0465083617 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 07 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: It's the Little Things: The Everyday Interactions That Get under the Skin of Blacks and Whites by Lena Williams, Charlayne Hunter-Gault ISBN: 0151004072 Publisher: Harcourt Pub. Date: 29 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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