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cookiegecko's review
1.0
Assigned this book for a college class and I'm not very impressed. The story jumps all over the place and I'm not quite sure what's happening and having a difficult time keeping the characters straight.
yours_marinia_monarch's review
5.0
An honest, sepia toned account of a boyhood in a place lost to time. Witty, immersive, and bittersweet, it had me invested to the end and warrants a second reading.
rwcarter's review
4.0
Gates tells his story of growing up in Piedmont, West Virginia with a prose style that is hilarious, engaging, and intimate. Touching on themes from growing up at the start of integration, to the two sides of his family tree that couldn't be more dissimilar, to his budding sexuality, to religion, and finally to the emergence of his political life, Gates' memoir is complex and simple in a dualistic way that is so characteristic of humanity.
This book is a great answer to the misguided assertion of white colorblindness. The stories in this book are rich, but they are rich because Gates doesn't subjugate race to some subsidiary role in his life. Race is central to his life, just as it is to all of ours. But we can acknowledge the individuality and uniqueness of the racial construct while still coming together, as Gates makes clear. One of the most striking motifs in the book for me was the view of integration from the perspective of a rural Black community. In school, we (read whites) are taught that integration was for the benefit of all and that this movement was for the betterment of all. But Gates points out that for some Black communities that had forged tight, intimate bonds in the face of oppression, this change wasn't necessarily a welcome one. One of the key events that recurs throughout the book is the 'colored mill picnic'. The local mill would host an annual white picnic and an annual colored picnic for its employees. For Gates and his community, this time was sacred and full of powerful moments of intimacy that manifested as brown bag alcohol or buttered husks of corn. However, the novel ends at one such picnic but with a somber mood. It is the last 'segregated' picnic; separate but equal has been overruled and the mill is no longer allowed to have two separate picnics. As Gates put it: "Nobody wanted segregation...but nobody thought of this as segregation." Rather, Gates suggests, these picnics, and the colored American Legion, and the colored churches, were bastions of the Black community that were unmade in the face of integration. For some, this legislative attempt at racial reconciliation was nothing but a further disruption of the lives of Blacks. This surprised me (white) at first, but upon reflection, nothing could make more sense. When you've formed a tight-knit group of friends and family, why would you want anything to impinge upon that? I think this is something important that gets neglected in modern discussion of race. The issue is not to force integration, but rather to provide opportunities for it when it is welcomed. To disrupt preconceptions of value-judgments of race and the establishment of a white-dominant world. However, to do this doesn't necessitate colorblindness. Rather, we must embrace the poststructuralist adage that things are defined by what they are not and allow this 'Are Not' to flourish on equal terms with the 'Are.'
This book is a great answer to the misguided assertion of white colorblindness. The stories in this book are rich, but they are rich because Gates doesn't subjugate race to some subsidiary role in his life. Race is central to his life, just as it is to all of ours. But we can acknowledge the individuality and uniqueness of the racial construct while still coming together, as Gates makes clear. One of the most striking motifs in the book for me was the view of integration from the perspective of a rural Black community. In school, we (read whites) are taught that integration was for the benefit of all and that this movement was for the betterment of all. But Gates points out that for some Black communities that had forged tight, intimate bonds in the face of oppression, this change wasn't necessarily a welcome one. One of the key events that recurs throughout the book is the 'colored mill picnic'. The local mill would host an annual white picnic and an annual colored picnic for its employees. For Gates and his community, this time was sacred and full of powerful moments of intimacy that manifested as brown bag alcohol or buttered husks of corn. However, the novel ends at one such picnic but with a somber mood. It is the last 'segregated' picnic; separate but equal has been overruled and the mill is no longer allowed to have two separate picnics. As Gates put it: "Nobody wanted segregation...but nobody thought of this as segregation." Rather, Gates suggests, these picnics, and the colored American Legion, and the colored churches, were bastions of the Black community that were unmade in the face of integration. For some, this legislative attempt at racial reconciliation was nothing but a further disruption of the lives of Blacks. This surprised me (white) at first, but upon reflection, nothing could make more sense. When you've formed a tight-knit group of friends and family, why would you want anything to impinge upon that? I think this is something important that gets neglected in modern discussion of race. The issue is not to force integration, but rather to provide opportunities for it when it is welcomed. To disrupt preconceptions of value-judgments of race and the establishment of a white-dominant world. However, to do this doesn't necessitate colorblindness. Rather, we must embrace the poststructuralist adage that things are defined by what they are not and allow this 'Are Not' to flourish on equal terms with the 'Are.'
natramz's review
5.0
Colored People is one of the best memoirs that I have read. The writing is raw and reflective.
gannent's review
emotional
funny
fast-paced
4.5
Now I understand why New Yorkers love reading books about New York. I've never read a book before where someone described the area I grew up with such care.
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