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Reviews tagging 'Racism'
Black, White, and Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self by Rebecca Walker
2 reviews
rokinjaguar's review against another edition
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
This was a very interestingly-written memoir. Artistic, emotional, and a little abstract, the author focuses more on how details tasted and smelled than a clear timeline, which I enjoyed. It had a lot of interesting insights and I got a lot from it. :)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Racism, Adult/minor relationship, Abortion, Alcohol, Infidelity, Racial slurs, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship
Minor: Drug use, Pregnancy, Bullying, Classism, Death of parent, Homophobia, Child abuse, Antisemitism, and Domestic abuse
dominic_t's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
sad
tense
fast-paced
4.0
Rebecca Walker has a fluid and engaging writing style. She had really insightful things to say about growing up as a mixed race person in a white Jewish community. I was really struck by her statement that she does not "feel an affinity with whiteness, with what Jewishness has become."
This was difficult to read because I was horrified by the sexual experiences she had in middle school and high school. She never passes any judgment on the men she slept with, and she never calls it abuse, so I don't feel like I can exactly label it that way. But it certainly seemed exploitative and was hard to read. It was also hard to read about how emotionally neglected she was. But she told her truth boldly, and I am very impressed by that.
On a technical level, this is not a typical autobiography. It's a series of vignettes. It's a bit hard to pin down exactly when things are happening, and sometimes the stories didn't seem to be exactly chronological. She also brings up stories with friends she's never mentioned before and she references them as though we should know who they are. So some of the stories seem a bit disjointed and unrelated. It's a stylistic choice that goes very well with the theme of the book. It really emphasizes how she moved between worlds and between friend groups and family. However, it was sometimes frustrating.
This was difficult to read because I was horrified by the sexual experiences she had in middle school and high school. She never passes any judgment on the men she slept with, and she never calls it abuse, so I don't feel like I can exactly label it that way. But it certainly seemed exploitative and was hard to read. It was also hard to read about how emotionally neglected she was. But she told her truth boldly, and I am very impressed by that.
On a technical level, this is not a typical autobiography. It's a series of vignettes. It's a bit hard to pin down exactly when things are happening, and sometimes the stories didn't seem to be exactly chronological. She also brings up stories with friends she's never mentioned before and she references them as though we should know who they are. So some of the stories seem a bit disjointed and unrelated. It's a stylistic choice that goes very well with the theme of the book. It really emphasizes how she moved between worlds and between friend groups and family. However, it was sometimes frustrating.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Racial slurs, and Racism
Moderate: Abortion
Minor: Homophobia
There is sexual content involving minors with older people.
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