Soul Sister (30th Anniversary Edition)

This book goes hand in hand with In Their Shoes, by the same author. This should be required reading in school.

Inspired by John Howard Griffin's "Black Like Me", Grace Halsell decided to see how things looked through a woman's eyes. Like Griffin, she saw a doctor and was prescribed the chemical that darkened her skin enough to pass as African-American. Then off she went to the Deep South to do her covert participant observation of white-generated racism. Among her ordeals is the true account of arriving at a white family's house to work as a maid, only to be accosted by the husband when the wife went away. Luckily for Grace, the wife returned because she forgot something and saved her from probably getting raped. The kicker is that the husband was a high official in the Ku Klux Klan, a perfect cover for his rapes of black women. Who would believe a black woman accusing, say, Jeb Bush of rape? Similary, no one would believe the victims of this Klansman. The highly readable recollections of Grace's ordeals during her short time in the South lack the sociological "thick description" of Griffin's work, but the accounts are nevertheless engaging. Halsell is an investigative journalist and her job is to share with us what happened; she doesn't dig into why this happening. Griffin's exposure to Catholic social philosophy helps him to analyze what is happening in terms of class conflict and status relations, which are all tied to power. And Griffin is a Southerner whereas Halsell is a Northerner, and that makes a difference as well. Nonetheless Halsell's investigative piece is a valuable compliment to Griffin's "Black Like Me".

This book is a must read. I have read it twice, loaned out my copy, it's falling apart and I will order another one. I think I like it a bit better than BLACK LIKE ME, but both will leave you shocked and shattered. Things have changed, but things haven't changed, too, and I as a Caucasian male do not doubt that this book is as relevant today as when it was written.Ms. Halsell (sadly, she died in August 2000) sees that the issues she is confronting and dealing with can't be simply ascribed to "race" issues, but go deeper, to matters of the human heart and the isolation that each one of us must bear and deal with as individual human beings in a world of sin and suffering and pain. Hence, she doesn't come to the easy answer of "If only Blacks and Whites (or Jews and Gentiles or Hispanics or American Indians or Palestinians and Israelis, etc.) would understand each other better, these problems wouldn't exist." She won't be that simplistic, and for that reason, SOUL SISTER raises (or should raise) larger issues in the readers' minds than the subject matter might lead one to expect.Read it. Read it now. Read it often.

GRACE HALSELL WAS INTRIGUED BY THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN HOW THE BLACK AMERICANS LIVED AND THE WHITE AMERICANS. AFTER A GREAT DEAL OF INDICISION SHE INGESTED A COMPOUND THAT WOULD TURN HER SKIN BLACK, THUS BEGAN HER ADVENTURES. A FEW THINGS WERE STRIKING: ONE WAS THE VULNERBILITY OF BLACK PEOPLE, THEY SEEM TO HAVE NO DEFENSE, AND HER CONCLUSION THAT PEOPLE BECOME BOUND TO EACH OTHER FROM THE PRACTICE OF HURTING EACH OTHER. IT IS NOT A BORING BOOK.