America Behind the Color Line: Dialogues with African Americans

Dr. Gates has done America a great service by helping to pull back the curtain on African American experiences and voices. I would recommend any of his writings.

Dr. Gates' book isn't a strict scholastic piece; instead, this is a collage of sketches of African-American life in the U.S. For this reason, this book is a great read. There is no overarching thesis, no trendy sociological analysis. In this book, Dr. Gates is more concerned with how diverse the day to day experiences are in the African-American community and what can be learned from individuals' personal stories, struggles and thoughts. He removes himself from the limelight and allows those he interviews to have center stage. This book is very human and very real. In an academic culture that likes broad, over-generalized theories, this book is a challenge to bring our thoughts back to the individuals who really struggle with societal problems and what life looks like outside the academic bubble. This book has a pulse and should be read by all those looking for the faces and the humanity behind the academic theories.

Despite the title, this book doesn't seem to go very far beyond the color line. Although the venerated author does tackle class, a very important issue, the book doesn't seem to draw the obvious conclusion. Here we see many of the familiar terms like "white money" or "white society" and yet this isn't America in 1950. Today's America is no longer white, in fact society at large is far more Hispanic and Asian then it ever has been. And yet there is still the racist stereotype that anything wealthy is white and that to succeed people must conform to `whiteness'. Such is the lie and such is the sad state of affairs that even the many educated and successful people interviewed in this book seem incapable of getting past. I was most unhappy not to se Condi Rice interviewed since I think her take on these things would have been most profound. Nevertheless this was a good start, finally admitting that class sometimes trumps race. The problem was that that conclusion didn't seem to draw this factuality out. Poverty is endemic, its not racial, it's a sickness and a culture. The culture of the trailer park mirrors the culture of the ghetto, and although racial lines may be drawn, they have little to do with success. Success is also a culture and it turns out that wealth breeds wealth. Thus the interviewees and this study should have drawn that idea out more, asking people to do what Booker T. asked them to do so long ago, namely, to succeed despite everything. Dr. King asked us to judge people by the `content of their character rather then the color of their skin' but it seems that in some points made here skin color is still paramount. And unless people heed Dr. Kings words, we will still be having `conversations beyond the color line' in 50 more years.Seth J. Frantzman

The media often tries to appear balanced and diverse by bringing on somebody to present the "black point of view." As this book of dialogues amply demonstrates, there is no such thing...there are only African Americans with opinions as diverse as the individuals themselves. Gates wondered "how far have we come since the Civil Rights Movement." To get some sense, he interviewed movers and shakers like Jesse Jackson and Vernon Jordan, but also those the Great Society left behind, like Kalais Chiron Hunt in the Cook County Jail and residents of Chicago's infamous Robert Taylor Homes . Familiar entertainment figures like Bernie Mac, Alicia Keys and Don Cheadle weigh in, with refreshingly candid interviews not commonly found in Hollywood hype. We meet activists on the front lines, like Lenora Fulani who uses theater to teach kids how to succeed in business. And we meet everyday people like Dierdre and Jerald Wolff who joined the new Southern Migration by moving to an affluent, predominantly black community in Atlanta, and Lura and Chris, a biracial couple living in Birmingham..I'm always impressed with Gate's ability to capture his subject's words without imposing his personality...he shares his own story in the introduction. Each of the 39 stories is told with clarity and fluidity; you read one and can't resist moving right into the next.A thought provoking book and for many white readers, a glimpse of black America not represented elsewhere.Curator, AfroAmericanHeritage dot com

About Gates' new book:When families are torn apart and an culture is destroyed, the damage goes on for generations and generations. I have worked on an Indian reservation, and it took me a year to see the truth--that many of these people are caught in a cycle of poverty, addiction, and despair because the meaning of life, for them, was destroyed in 1860, and their society has never recovered.Like the air we breathe, we are not even aware of the culture that supports our very lives until it is destroyed.Likewise, slavery destroyed fatherhood and manhood by definition. If you want to find the roots of poverty and dependance and illegitimacy today in the black ghetto, look no further than the slave ships. Thus all Americans, as individuals, families, and yes--as a government--must intervene to save young black men, who are now overflowing our prisons. This books says it well. Please read it.