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Life on the Color Line: The True Story of a White Boy Who Discovered He Was Black ReviewThis is an intriguing memoir that allows the reader to see what life was like for the author whose early life was defined by issues of race and color. The author had spent his early years in Virginia, where his white mother and his dark-skinned "Italian" father operated a roadside tavern. Growing up in the South, where issues of race and color were so important, the author had always thought that he was white, as he had been raised as such. When his parents' business, as well as their marriage, collapsed, his mother left them, forcing his father to return home to his roots in Muncie, Indiana. Abandoned by their mother, it was there that the author and his younger brother, Mike, were to discover which side of the then great color divide he and his brother were on. The lesson would be a difficult one.In Muncie, Indiana, they were to discover that their father, rather than being Italian, was bi-racial, born of the union of a Black woman and a White father. In those times, however, you were considered to be either White or Black. So in Indiana, he was Black, even though, ironically, in the South he had passed for White. Now, his children, Greg and Mike, were to learn that, notwithstanding their appearance, they were considered to be Black, and forced to live in a segregated world on the wrong side of the race and color divide. They quickly learned what it was to be considered second class citizens. This was the nineteen fifties, during the heyday of the Klu Klux Klan, and well before the Civil Rights Movement had taken hold, so feelings ran very high on issues of race and color.
Looking as if they were White but considered to be Black, the boys found themselves in a limbo of sorts, rejected by both Whites and Blacks. They had to learn how to maneuver in this crazy patchwork quilt of absurd and confusing racial notions that would marginalize their existence and make them the target for every miscreant on either side of the race and color divide. This was to have great impact on the brothers, as they each found their own personal coping mechanism for the deprivation, poverty, hostility and prejudice that circumscribed their life in Indiana. Unfortunately, they ultimately each took divergent paths. The author would seek legitimate work and higher education as a way to forge ahead in life, while Mike would seek solace in the lure of easy money, easy women, and life in the fast lane, a choice that would end in personal tragedy for him.
The book clearly delineates the fact that, in the nineteen fifties, there were two Americas that existed side by side. One America was born of privilege and opportunity reserved for Whites. The other America was one of repression and lack of opportunity reserved for Blacks. Clearly, those who were defined as Black but wished to pass for White did not do so because of racial hatred. They did so as a way of bypassing a hated system that could so circumscribe someone's potential and ability to seek a better way of life. Who is White? Who is Black? These are questions that should generally be unnecessary. The response should be, "Who cares?".
The author focuses on his early life, the part that evidently caused him so much pain, while skimming on the latter part of his life. It would have been interesting to have spent some additional time on the latter part, to see how those early experiences affected or shaped the man he was to become and is today. Still, this is an intriguing memoir that is written by someone who has lived in these two Americas and endured. It is a testament to the resiliency of the human spirit.Life on the Color Line: The True Story of a White Boy Who Discovered He Was Black Overview
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