Marriage Beyond Black and White: An Interracial Family Portrait

This story of love in the face of enormous social opposition is honestly told. It is a miracle of love because few couples ever have the commitment to their relationship to persevere in the face of such heavily stacked odds as are related in this autobiographic story. My own interracial marriage did not last primarily because my husband and I were totally devoted to different things, I to what I saw as bettering the world and he (I felt) to his alcoholism . . . . Perhaps we both lacked the sense of the importance of the RELATIONSHIP which is so strongly portrayed in this story. I liked the way the son picked up his mother's story and made no attempt to guess her point of view -- just told his own story as a continuation of hers. I liked that while the pain was presented, no one wallowed in it as is the case in many such stories but rather everyone in some measure rose above it. And I liked that the individual members of the family were able to accept each other's varied ways of approach to life without judgmentalism and without trying to force the rest of the family to their chosen path. This story is not only a tribute to a very strong couple and their strong children (yes, even the ones with yet-unsolved problems show a lot of strength) -- but it is also a cry to heal the social and spiritual maladies of our country (and the world) which are the cause of all the pain this family suffered. My own experience in a Black-White mixed marriage in the 1970's suggests that this process of healing has started a little bit but it still has a long way to go. While we were never thrown out of a neighborhood or refused hotel accommodations, we were treated to the staring commented on in this book, subjected to yelled epithets, and the ostracism -- and I often wonder what my biracial son would write about his life if he were to write -- in fact I raised him on the Navajo Reservation largely to get away from the black-white nightmare portrayed in this book -- on the Navajo Res we became simply part of the nonNavajo groups against whom many Navajos were prejudiced and not a single mixed family standing against both Black and White opposition. You might say I selected the type of prejudice I would subject my child to -- as the different family members in this book selected whether to accept the type of prejudice endured in a predominantly Black neighborhood or the type endured in a predominantly White neighborhood. I found among teachers on a reservation a larger percentage of people to whom race did not matter than probably would have been the case among teachers off-reservation. While we've "come a long way, baby" we still have far to go.

This book was an eye opener. . I thought this book described in a very personal way some of the ways racism effects the lives of African American families in this country today and in the recent past. The first section of the book is seen through the eyes of Barbara who grew up in Ann Arbor Michigan in a white middle class family. She described herself as growing up in a family that actively supported the rights of African Americans and as I understand this, as a child growing up accepted this as normal. This attitude she believed to be correct and therefore the way other white families believed. She was shocked and horrified to find out just how naïve she was concerning racism in this country when she became involved with an African American man. She recounts incident after incident of how racism affected her family starting as an interracial couple and then as a family with children. This included job and housing discrimination and even situations that literally put their lives into danger. She described her experience as one who had been raised as a first class citizen and then sudden found herself a second class citizen striped of all the privilege and protection she had taken for granted and had assumed were shared by all Americans.

Barbara Douglas, a great writer, one paragraph weaved to the next with long pulling sentences that keep the reader interested, sad, mad, and desparate to know what happened next. Barbara's wonderful story of her interracial marriage to Carlyle, the painful tradgedy of the sick racism they endured and their powerful love that kept them glued together - it is by itself an "unfinished symphony" and essay of the highest mark.In part two, David in a distinctly different voice and style tells the story of his early years, education, and the details of interracial family life. His style is one of simply truth, exlaining his encounters and experiences with racism, as well as the solutions he found in his search for identity.Indeed, David as a biracial child was at one-time, like a prisoner in a racially divided world. Thus he is able to give us a more balanced and unbiased perspective of this "disease" that lives on in virtually every human being. Yet the cure is attainable and David provides a thoughtful and comprehensive solution, while at the same time suggesting some tactical remedies derived in part from the Baha'i religion that may seem extreme to some but are well worth considering. It is a "must read" for anyone interested in the unity of the world.

Barbara Douglas gave us a gem of a book. The Chapters were riviting and eye opening. I saw myself in some of her words and the actions of those who judged her marriage. Though I would like to be completely free from prejidice, I now see some of the actions I have taken could be misconstrued as such. I felt for her, loved her, and cryed with her. I was sorry to see her part of the book end with her death. David tried hard to tell the story his mom could not finish. I applaud him for honoring his mother this way. I was taken back however by his sometimes preachy text and felt somewhat offended that he clumped America into a ball of racism. His bitterness shown thru and for that he hurt the reader that he was trying to make understand. I am from a white protestent background. I am not my parents or my grand parents. I'm a work in progress and hope that color will one day only be seen as something beautiful and whole not a line that is drawn in the sand.