-

 The new foreword to Black Lives, White Lives by Gerald Early is beautifully conceived and written, with so much intellect, heart, wisdom, and great cultural knowledge, Bob would have felt very honored – I will venture to say, he does feel happy and honored. I want to share short fragments from the very beginning, middle, and very end of Mr. Early’s essay to give you a tiny taste.  

    Sociologist Bob Blauner’s Black Lives, White Lives reads very much as if were a documentary film put on paper with ever-shifting talking heads, ever changing perspectives about race relations in the United States at these distinct moments, 1968, 1978-1979, and 1986.  It is both immediate and epic.  …One never wants to stop reading, as if mesmerized by a film that is presenting a profoundly poetic revelation while it shows a monstrous train wreck.  Perhaps that is what the relationship between White and Black in America is: a remarkable fable about human affinity, intimacy, and sympathy nestled in a narrative of negation, racial hegemony, exploitation, and violence.  A considerable tradeoff, to be sure, or a considerable paradox. 

 

…The preoccupation with speech and the complexities of orality is what makes Black Lives, White Lives come alive, actually work, as a conversation, the informants speaking not only with and against the others in their racial section, but with and against others in the section where the informants of the other race are holding forth.   Four hundred people, Black and White, men and women, were interviewed for this project.  Twenty-eight are featured in the book, sixteen Blacks and twelve Whites. 

 

…There are number of classic post-World War II sociological texts, works that actually gained popular audiences such as C. Wright Mills’s The Power Elite, David Riesman’s The Lonely Crowd, Jane Jacobs’s The Death and Life of Great American Cities, and such influential race studies as Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma, E. Franklin Frazier’s Black Bourgeoisie, Wilson Julius Wilson’s The Declining Significance of Race, Tricia Rose’s Black Noise, and Charles Keil’s Urban Blues. These books, in one way or another, changed my mind and moved my heart.  Bob Blauner’s Black Lives, White Lives is another.  

 

Gerald Early 

Washington University 

St. Louis, Missouri 




Comments

  1. Alex KFebruary 4, 2022 at 10:07 AM

    Wow! What an introduction to begin the adventure of reading Bob's book. Like a passageway to a room that in the walking of it prepares and allows you to more deeply and respectfully know what you have entered.

    ReplyDelete
  2. KarinaFebruary 4, 2022 at 10:58 AM

    yeah, you obviously read the whole essay in beginning of book!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

-
Image
  Immigration On Friday morning of September 20, I am spending a couple of hours for my naturalization interview in the federal building  on 630 Sansome Street in San Francisco  that houses the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Then later at 1 pm, in the oath ceremony, I am reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Standing, holding up my right hand like everyone else, repeating the words after our master of ceremonies, I am engulfed in a chorus of immigrants’ voices from all over the world. Out of maybe 80, only two are Caucasian. The man leading us through the 20 minutes ceremony, is most likely a judge, but without his robe. He is an elegant, kind, and personable elder. We can hear the genuineness in his voice, and we are genuine, too. As we pledge allegiance to this country, the English sentences might ring slightly different for each of us. In another minute we will be citizens of the United States. Something in me is expanding. I am swearing to be a responsible an...
Read more
-
Image
  Last Dance with Uncle Oak This time, to honor the loss of another member of my ancient live oaks, I want to climb into the tree. Like I used to do 32 years ago, move, touch, feel – suspended in the air, resting on bark, sensations to be remembered. Perhaps documenting it? I ask around last minute, and find a good match in photographer  Rebecca Weinstein  to take stills of my last dance with old Uncle Oak. Once my naked feet touch the rough bark, a dynamic joy starts spreading through my body and limbs. The surprising urge to elongate myself within the safety of his sturdy arms. Next morning in a different light, I dress for another chance of closeness, envisioning my smallness to be captured. The freedom to grow into a tree, become tree , get an oak’s view, blend well, and disappear eventually. Uncle Oak, has been leaning for decades, growing northward horizontally, reaching far over into the neighbor’s yard. Now that Mama Oak has left, his malaise is more apparent...
Read more
-
Image
  Looking at you… f aintly the handwriting reads:    Karina & Bob, Here’s looking at you in 1994 With best regards, Howard   Back when he studied T’ai Chi with me for a few years, Howard was already older, a fine, eccentric gentleman. And a very good and well-known artist. With a deeply philosophical side to him which made him enjoy my way of teaching the Art and Principles of this ancient practice. He’d have questions, comments, always delighted by insights, his or mine.   In the hallway I often pass his small watercolor, with its (faded by now) inscription to Bob and me. Bob’s birthday will be in three days on May 18.  If alive, my late husband – who died in October of 2016 – would turn ninety-five this year. Suddenly I feel the presence of time in my heart, swirling about back and forth, swooshing from chamber to chamber, expanding. Howard’s greeting from 1994 – thirty years later, I am now seventy, about the age he was back then.  Suddenly I am...
Read more