Black White and Jewish
Autobiography of a Shifting Self

I read Black, White & Jewish while I was in high school. It was one of the single most important autobiographies I read during that period. At the time, I felt like the only mixed kid on the block and was going through severe identity issues. Black, White & Jewish has one simple message: you are the......more

Provides (beautifully narrated) insight into: -why girls use sex to get attention and affection and fill painful little gaps in their lives -some challenges that mixed race youth may face -what happens to children of neglectful, in attentive parents -the effects on youth of parents who do not embrace al......more

Ech, I don't know what to think. I'm not so naive as to expect novelist Alice Walker to be a perfect person, but her daughter's tale of being left alone as an early teenager for days and even weeks at a time, eating fast food and schtupping for comfort, made me want to tear my hair out. On the other......more

Interesting…this was not nearly as much about being “Black White and Jewish” as being parented by parents lacking parenting skills. I wanted to shake the begeezes out of both her mother and father for the ridiculous set up of living in New York (or its suburbs) for two years then San Francisco and t......more

Everybody has a childhood issue that has to be dealt with during adulthood. Walker's birth symbolized the ideal of blacks and whites (and Jewish in this case) embracing in a segregated America at the height of the civil rights movement. Alas, dreams are usually much sweeter than reality, which Walke......more