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zinelib 's review for:
Surviving the White Gaze: A Memoir
by Rebecca Carroll
Despite the hypervisibility of being raised by white parents, among white siblings, in a white town, with access to her white birth mother, Rebecca is, in some ways, invisible. No one can see, much less relate to, how she is treated or experiences the world. Despite being alt-culture hippie types with actual Black friends, her parents don't seem to see race or make an effort to acculturate their daughter with Blackness. Feeling isolated in her ultrawhite town, Rebecca becomes closer with her birth mother, Tess, who lives in a New Hampshire city. Tess, because she has had romantic relationships with men of color, and because her kids are of color, is an expert on Blackness, informing Rebecca that she, herself, is not authentically Black. Yet somehow Rebecca is in Tess's thrall.
As she gets older, Rebecca eventually meets, befriends, and dates other Black people and becomes interested and gains expertise in popular Black culture, literature, and history, but it takes a long time for her to stop trying to please Tess and her parents' versions of her and her reality.
The book is a struggle in some ways, like living it was for the author, and, spoiler, good people aren't always good parents.
As she gets older, Rebecca eventually meets, befriends, and dates other Black people and becomes interested and gains expertise in popular Black culture, literature, and history, but it takes a long time for her to stop trying to please Tess and her parents' versions of her and her reality.
The book is a struggle in some ways, like living it was for the author, and, spoiler, good people aren't always good parents.