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When the author and his brother were forced to leave Virginia and return to his father's family in Muncie, Indiana, they discovered that their father was a black man who has "passed" in white society. Life on the Color Line tells Williams' story. revealing how his courage and perseverance helped him overcome years of poverty, racism, and intolerance. Film & TV rights optioned by De Passe Entertainment. of photos.
Anonymous
Posted March 19, 2012
I had to purchase this book to read for a Master's course. The book was not one that I enjoyed reading. I did not even finish reading the entire book, nor do I think I would go back and try and finish it. The story was very wordy and hard to follow. I think there was an interesting story to tell, but the author spent so much time giving useless details, it bogged down the story.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted December 30, 2004
The disturbing thing about Williams' book is that he seems to accept the racist idea that a true 'white' person is totally 'free'of nonwhite ancestry - or at least black ancestry. Williams' tries to ignore the fact that his younger brother and sister identify as white. He tries to paint his mother as a racist who rejected him because of his 'tainted' blood, but he has no answer for the fact that his mother reared his younger brother and sister even though their paternity was the same as his. My sympathy goes to a struggling single mother who was forced to leave a battering husband, find a job and rear children on her own. Williams paints his light mulatto father, Tony (I will not use the racist term 'light-skinned black man' because it endorses the myth of hypodescent and implies that Tony wasn't good enough for his white ancestry) as a victim of 'racism' but I don't buy it. Tony was a 'white' man (Who the hell has the authority to say who is or isn't white?) who lost his business and his wife (He was alcoholic and a wife-beater) through his own incompetence and stupidity. Those are individual faults, not 'racial' ones. Williams wants us to think that Tony's incompetence came about as a result of 'denying' his 'black blood.' Are we to assume that every 'white' alcoholic or wife-batterer is hiding a 'black blood' stigma? Please!! Tony was guilty of child abuse - a fact Williams doesn't want to recognize. The worthless bum takes his innocent older sons away from their mother, dumbs them in Muncie, Indiana with an alcoholic old black woman in the poorest slum in town, tells them they are now 'colored' and obliged to take the 'Negro' side in the racial cold war that was the reality in Muncie. That was like calling yourself a Communist during the 1950s. Also, I have no sympathy for Tony's inability to get a decent job. Any 'white' man in the 1950s could get a good job if he tried. Tony Williams just decided to self-destruct. He should have been thrown into prison for abusing his sons the way he did. Williams, who is Law School Dean at Ohio State University, knows that many people (especially those of Hispanic or Arabic origin) freely identify as 'white' or otherwise nonblack when their phenotypes clearly show Negroid ancestry. Society has not forced Williams to pretend to be 'black.' The inferiority complex instilled in him by his father did that. The worst thing about this book is that Williams is proclaiming his devotion to a racist myth of white 'purity' while pretending to fight 'racism.'
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Posted July 5, 2011
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Posted October 13, 2010
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Posted July 28, 2011
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Posted April 27, 2011
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Posted May 15, 2012
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Posted January 19, 2010
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Overview
"A stunning journey to the heart of the racial dilemma in this country. Everyone will be enriched by reading the unforgettable tale.When the author and his brother were forced to leave Virginia and return to his father's family in Muncie, Indiana, they discovered that their father was a black man who has "passed" in white society. Life on the Color Line tells Williams' story. revealing how his courage and perseverance helped him overcome years of poverty, racism, and intolerance. Film & TV rights optioned by De Passe Entertainment. of photos.