Notes of a white black woman : race, color, community / Judy Scales-Trent.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Scales-Trent, Judy.

Contributor:

Joanna Banks Collection of African American Books (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Race awareness--United States.

Race awareness.

Human skin color--Social aspects.

Human skin color.

United States.

Human skin color--Social aspects--United States.

African Americans--Race identity.

African Americans.

Racism--United States.

Racism.

United States--Race relations.

Race relations.

Scales-Trent, Judy.

African Americans--Biography.

African American women--Biography.

African American women.

Genre:

Biographies.

Penn Provenance:

Banks, Joanna (donor) (Banks Collection copy)

Physical Description:

viii, 198 pages, 2 unnumbered pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

University Park, Pennsylvania : The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995.

Summary:

Many black Americans have light skin. Using vivid and varied personal experiences, Judy Scales-Trent describes what it is like to be a "white" black woman and to live simultaneously inside and outside of both white and black communities. Scales-Trent begins by describing how this country's racial purity laws have operated over the past four hundred years. Then, in a series of autobiographical essays, she addresses how race and color interact in relationships between men and women, within families, and in the larger community. Scales-Trent ultimately explores the question of what we really mean by "race" in this country, once it is clear that race is not a tangible reality as reflected through color. Scales-Trent uses autobiography both as a way to describe these issues and to develop a theory of the social construction of race. She explores how race and color intertwine through black and white families and across generations; how members of both black and white communities work to control group membership; and what happens to relations between black men and women when the layer of color is placed over the already difficult layer of race. She addresses how one can tell - and whether one can tell - who, indeed, is "black" or "white". Scales-Trent also celebrates the richness of her bicultural heritage and shows how she has revised her teaching methods to provide her law students with a multicultural education. In the tradition of Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby, The Alchemy of Race and Rights, and The Sweeter the Juice, Notes of a White Black Woman explores the meaning of race in the United States, the power of racial categories in our lives, and the personal experience of beinga black professional in an overwhelmingly white world.

Contents:

Introduction

Commonalities: On Being Black and White, Different, and the Same

Afterword and Preface

The Lesson

Stories We Tell

Family Pictures

Africa in My Hair

(Laughter Helps!)

Shock and Fear in America

Choosing Up Sides

"Mo' Black"

Definitions

Marion and Effi

Even Du Bois

-

Men, Women, and Death

Black Does Not Equal Brown

Instructions: For the "White" Person Who Wants to Understand

Lost Great-Uncle Charles

On Being Like a Mule

(Dis)Continuities

The Re-Vision of Marginality

Affirmative Action and Stigma: The Education of a Professor

Skinwalkers, Race, and Geography

"Where're Your People From?": Thoughts on Ethnicity and Race

An Ordinary Day.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Local Notes:

Kislak Center Banks Collection copy presented to the Penn Libraries in 2018 by Joanna Banks.

Banks Collection copy: dustjacket retained.

ISBN:

027101430X

OCLC:

31608055