The author recounts the shock he experienced when he learned that his father’s relatives in Muncie, Indiana, were poor and black, and describes the prejudice that he and his brother endured from both sides. Reprint. NYT. … More >>
Life on the Color Line : The True Story of a White Boy Who Discovered He Was Black
Look, I have a great deal of sympathy and a great deal of admiration for any individual that overcomes adversity, but let’s be real here. Mr Willliams is white. Race is a phenotypic state. Period. Everywhere Mr Williams goes he is regarded as white because he is. African ancestry is not a taint. If it was, many an Arab or Latino person claiming to be white would be one-dropped right out of the category. We don’t do that to any mixed white from any other nation,only to Americans. A study done in 1958, by the federal government found that, conservatively, twenty percent of the American “white” population had a black ancestor within four generations. This is nothing new. In order to be white in America they just had to deny they ever had a black ancestor. One cannot “pass” for something one IS. Mr Williams, unfortunately, had an alcoholic, abusive father who attempted to wreck his life. He is not black because being black is merely a perception of phenotype and he doesn’t have it. He can choose a black identity if he wishes, so could Vanilla Ice for that matter.
Rating: 1 / 5
I read “Living on the Color Line” for a school assignment, because the other book looked unappealing. As I started reading “Living on the Color Line” though, I feared I had made a mistake. While this book has its entertaining moments, it moves along slowly. It’s the story of Greg, and how when he was 9 his parents divorce forced him to learn of and rely on his father’s side of the family. A family that turned out to be black, when Greg had always been told that his father was Italian. This book shares a heart breaking story, and shows that if you work hard enough and never give up, you can get where you want to go. I did, however, find the last 100 pages of the book much better than those leading up to it. The first part of the book was quite repetitive, and towards the end, he started branching out. There are several big moments in the book, but the one that stands out in my mind is when Greg and his younger brother Mike come face to face with their mother, 10 years after she left their father and hadn’t seen them since. But no matter what the hardship was, Greg always pulled through, and put what really mattered first. It’s a good book, if you can stick it out until the end.
Rating: 3 / 5
Gregory williams takes you on a front row tour of his life on the color line. This book realy makes you stop, and think about the racial issues of past and present. It begins with Gregory (billy) and brother mike, living with their father (a half white half black person passing for italian), and their white mother living in white northern Virginia. This lilly life went on for ten years untill the fathers’ alcholism lost the family business, and drove the boys’ mother away. After that the father and the boys move to Indiana, and life is changed forever.
Rating: 4 / 5
Recently, our class read Gregory Howard Williams autobiography Life on the Color Line. The book deals with Gregory Howard Williams, who until he was 10 years, believed that he was white, but he later learned that he was actually black. There are some sections of the book that appeal to me while there are some that don’t. To begin with, I am not very thrilled with the use of foul language. Growing up I wasn’t around people that spoke so much foul language, and at moments I was appalled. After I read this book, I learned what his point of using this foul language throughout the book was. It shows the environment where he was growing up. His father is abusive towards his mother and the children are exposed to violence, abusive behavior as well as racism. On the other hand, there was a positive influence that I got from the book and this is the relationship Billy had with his brother Mike. I often felt that they had such a closeness between them. One would always look out for the other one, and they would always help each other out. After reading this book, there was also a negative aspect to this book; it was the drinking of Tony Williams that slowly, after time, affected him and his children. When I say it affected him and his children, I mean, that he was almost about to die at different points in the book. One time it was a bar fight which was right in front of his kids’ eyes. He did however always want good for his children. In his mind, if they were in trouble he would go and rescue them. Whenever the Dad would tell the kids to get a job, he would take up the money himself and not share it. From reading this book I got the impression that Billy was hardworking throughout his whole education. He would have to tell his brother to focus on his education because his life would continue to decline. I feel that Mary, the mother, did the right thing by leaving his husband since he was the one that was so abusive towards her. I felt that Tony should not have dumped the kids in Muncie and should have taken responsibility for his own children and since it his duty to raise them right. From reading this book I got a positive influence and that he actually does care for his children because he really did try to show up for Billy’s high school graduation. A positive thing that I got from Tony’s character is when he said that he should be put in jail so that his drinking would decrease. This is an example of someone who is trying to change himself into a good man. On the whole, I feel that I actually enjoyed reading Gregory’s Howard Williams autobiography because I have learned much about what it feels like to have a double identity and what type of sturggles come with that. While they are some flaws in the book, the positive points clearly outweigh the negatives making Life On The Color Line a great book to read.
Rating: 3 / 5
I read this book in two sittings. It was incredibly powerful, thought-provoking and touching. The moment when the author realized that he was the evil “mulatto” who ministers, educators and lawmakers inveighed against, stayed with me for days. What an eye-opener, and a powerful tool for opening the discussion on race.
Rating: 5 / 5