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A review by sarahscott917
Surviving the White Gaze: A Memoir by Rebecca Carroll
5.0
I appreciate Rebecca Carroll sharing her journey as she navigated growing up a Black woman in rural, white New Hampshire in a white family that didn't "see color" and as she navigated a complicated relationship with her white birth mother, who was emotionally and mentally abusive, and as she discovered and embraced her Blackness.
I cheered every time she made connections with Black peers and mentors as she sought out Black culture and found what was missing in her childhood.
That’s where I wanted to get, I thought, that resolute confidence and self-awareness that comes with being black, owning it, and willfully denouncing white supremacy. In the same way that Elijah had taught me there was more than one way to be black, Michael taught me, and more important made me feel, that who I was was black enough.
I felt awful for her in most of her interactions with her birth mother and with her childhood peers as she craved acceptance for who she is but was failed by everyone who couldn't see the real her. Adoptee voices are so important in changing the narrative of adoption, and I'm a better parent having read this.
It wasn’t just that my siblings and parents didn’t see me; it was that they didn’t see race or think about blackness, mine or anyone else’s, and I felt like I deserved that, at the very least. To be adopted into a white family that did not see or care or think about my blackness or my experience navigating a racist country had always felt lonely and isolating, endlessly confusing, but now it just felt cruel.
I cheered every time she made connections with Black peers and mentors as she sought out Black culture and found what was missing in her childhood.
That’s where I wanted to get, I thought, that resolute confidence and self-awareness that comes with being black, owning it, and willfully denouncing white supremacy. In the same way that Elijah had taught me there was more than one way to be black, Michael taught me, and more important made me feel, that who I was was black enough.
I felt awful for her in most of her interactions with her birth mother and with her childhood peers as she craved acceptance for who she is but was failed by everyone who couldn't see the real her. Adoptee voices are so important in changing the narrative of adoption, and I'm a better parent having read this.
It wasn’t just that my siblings and parents didn’t see me; it was that they didn’t see race or think about blackness, mine or anyone else’s, and I felt like I deserved that, at the very least. To be adopted into a white family that did not see or care or think about my blackness or my experience navigating a racist country had always felt lonely and isolating, endlessly confusing, but now it just felt cruel.