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How I Shed My Skin: Unlearning the Racist Lessons of a Southern Childhood
More than sixty years ago, the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that America’s schools could no longer be segregated by race.
Novelist Jim Grimsley was eleven years old in 1966 when federally mandated integration of schools went into effect in the state and the school in his small eastern North Carolina town was first integrated.
What Jim did not realize until he began to meet these new students was just how deeply ingrained his own prejudices were and how those prejudices had developed in him despite the fact that prior to starting sixth grade, he had actually never known any black people.
Now, more than forty years later, Grimsley looks back at that school and those times--remembering his own first real encounters with black children and their culture. Jim takes readers into those classrooms and onto the playing fields as, ever so tentatively, alliances were forged and friendships established. And looking back from today’s perspective, he examines how far we have really come.
Novelist Jim Grimsley was eleven years old in 1966 when federally mandated integration of schools went into effect in the state and the school in his small eastern North Carolina town was first integrated.
What Jim did not realize until he began to meet these new students was just how deeply ingrained his own prejudices were and how those prejudices had developed in him despite the fact that prior to starting sixth grade, he had actually never known any black people.
Now, more than forty years later, Grimsley looks back at that school and those times--remembering his own first real encounters with black children and their culture. Jim takes readers into those classrooms and onto the playing fields as, ever so tentatively, alliances were forged and friendships established. And looking back from today’s perspective, he examines how far we have really come.
275 pages, Hardcover
First published April 7, 2015
About the author
Jim Grimsley
42 books371 followersJim Grimsley published a new novel in May of 2022, The Dove in the Belly, out from Levine Querido. The book is a look at the past when queer people lived more hidden lives than now. Grimsley was born in rural eastern North Carolina. He has published short stories and essays in various quarterlies, including DoubleTake, New Orleans Review, Carolina Quarterly, New Virginia Review, the LA Times, and the New York Times Book Review. Jim’s first novel Winter Birds, was published in the United States by Algonquin Books in the fall of 1994. Winter Birds won the Sue Kaufman Prize for best first novel from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. He has published other novels, including Dream Boy, Kirith Kirin, and My Drowning. His books are available in Hebrew, German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Japanese, and Portuguese. He has also published a collection of plays and most recently a memoir, How I Shed My Skin. His body of work as a prose writer and playwright was awarded the Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2005. For twenty years he taught writing at Emory University in Atlanta.
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June 3, 2022Update The author is weaving in his life as a gay teenager and his recognition that it marginalises him, should anyone find out. He, if you like, passes as straight out of survival. He sees the parallels (but not really well) with being Black in that society but doesn't go into it. The book has generally though got a lot deeper and more introspective and shows how he was indoctrinated into the global conspiracy theory that anyone different from your race is less than you.
I'm liking the book more.
_________
The author grew up in a strict Christian household and went to a Church where the pastor preached that God did not want the races to mix. But it was the 60s, it was Black Power, Vietnam, hippies and Hair. And the school district declared that parents could choose any school for their kids, it didn't have to be the segregated schools they all went to. Three black girls chose the white school that the author went to, all aged 11.
At first to impress the rest of the class, none of whom had been taught racism but imbibed it with their mother's milk as the saying goes, the author, Jim, calls one of the girls a black bitch. She retorts calling him a white cracker bitch. This girl is really mouthy and I love her. They weren't really being racist, but children and in not too long he is on great terms, friends of a kind with the other two girls.
But what really opens his eyes, was Ebony and Jet. Ebony was full of black people doing what white people, going out to restaurants, dressing well, working in good jobs, advertising products. It was, although the author didn't say it, an epiphany. He had to revise his thinking of poor blacks who had limited lives unlike the upper race, the whites, who had everything. And he saw that in these magazines the black girls read there were political discussions, Stokely Carmichael and the Black Panthers. He was used to Marvel Comics!
So far, so good. I think I've had about four books in a row dnf'd (I didn't write them all up) so I'm due an enjoyable book to read.
I'm liking the book more.
_________
The author grew up in a strict Christian household and went to a Church where the pastor preached that God did not want the races to mix. But it was the 60s, it was Black Power, Vietnam, hippies and Hair. And the school district declared that parents could choose any school for their kids, it didn't have to be the segregated schools they all went to. Three black girls chose the white school that the author went to, all aged 11.
At first to impress the rest of the class, none of whom had been taught racism but imbibed it with their mother's milk as the saying goes, the author, Jim, calls one of the girls a black bitch. She retorts calling him a white cracker bitch. This girl is really mouthy and I love her. They weren't really being racist, but children and in not too long he is on great terms, friends of a kind with the other two girls.
But what really opens his eyes, was Ebony and Jet. Ebony was full of black people doing what white people, going out to restaurants, dressing well, working in good jobs, advertising products. It was, although the author didn't say it, an epiphany. He had to revise his thinking of poor blacks who had limited lives unlike the upper race, the whites, who had everything. And he saw that in these magazines the black girls read there were political discussions, Stokely Carmichael and the Black Panthers. He was used to Marvel Comics!
So far, so good. I think I've had about four books in a row dnf'd (I didn't write them all up) so I'm due an enjoyable book to read.
February 4, 2016
I wasn't sure just how honest a look at racism a book written by a white man could be. When it came to his own racist attitudes. Jim Grimsley was way more honest than I expected. There are not a lot of people who would admit to such attitudes regarding black people and white people. I am sure some of the people in this book would claim not to be a racist, despite their behavior. Jim never realized such attitudes were present (or even that there was anything wrong with that) until the forced integration of the schools. When black children started going to his school, he realized just how pervasive his beliefs were that black people were inferior. These beliefs were not conscious though. As the author states, no one specifically told him that white people were superior. But when he saw that black people were forced to sit at the back of the bus and that some restaurants refused to serve them and that black people had to use different water fountains and bathrooms, it was hard for him not to adapt to those beliefs.
It was interesting to hear the author talk about the subtle ways in which the people of the town exhibited their feelings about the integration of the schools. Private schools were opened and most of the white children left public school rather than go to school with black children. Since Jim's family was too poor for this option, he was forced to deal with the integration. Even at school though, the white children played with the white children and the black children played with the black children. The students didn't respect the few black teachers they had. There were countless subtle ways that white people in that small town exhibited their racism.
The author tried to make the connection that he could somewhat relate to the black children's feelings because he was struggling with his own homosexual feelings that he tried to repress. In my opinion, this connection is a flimsy one. While the black children could not do anything to hide their race, Jim was able to hide his sexuality. I'm not saying that it was right that he had to, but he was able to "throw off" suspicion that others had about his sexuality by dating girls. He still fit in with the other white kids for no other reason than the fact that he was white. Granted, the attitudes towards a person's sexuality was very similar to how people thought towards race (still is in a lot of places), but you still can't compare a person's sexuality with race.
Here is my issue with this book: I don't feel there were any real insights by the author. Yes, he was honest enough to realize the racism shown by his classmates and even himself. But he did not show any insights about how or why he rose above it. I am not even convinced that he did rise above it, despite what the title says. He makes one comment in the book that whenever a white person says they are not racist, he automatically doesn't believe them because it is so hard to overcome attitudes that were taught from such an early age. But he also says that he had two choices as a child: submit to the community's beliefs that black people were inferior or rise above it. First of all, those two statements contradict each other. Second of all, while I do think you can rise about racist attitudes that were taught to you from infancy, I think it's way more involved than just deciding not to be racist. The author is way too simplistic because he suggests that really is the only thing to it.
It was interesting to hear the author talk about the subtle ways in which the people of the town exhibited their feelings about the integration of the schools. Private schools were opened and most of the white children left public school rather than go to school with black children. Since Jim's family was too poor for this option, he was forced to deal with the integration. Even at school though, the white children played with the white children and the black children played with the black children. The students didn't respect the few black teachers they had. There were countless subtle ways that white people in that small town exhibited their racism.
The author tried to make the connection that he could somewhat relate to the black children's feelings because he was struggling with his own homosexual feelings that he tried to repress. In my opinion, this connection is a flimsy one. While the black children could not do anything to hide their race, Jim was able to hide his sexuality. I'm not saying that it was right that he had to, but he was able to "throw off" suspicion that others had about his sexuality by dating girls. He still fit in with the other white kids for no other reason than the fact that he was white. Granted, the attitudes towards a person's sexuality was very similar to how people thought towards race (still is in a lot of places), but you still can't compare a person's sexuality with race.
Here is my issue with this book: I don't feel there were any real insights by the author. Yes, he was honest enough to realize the racism shown by his classmates and even himself. But he did not show any insights about how or why he rose above it. I am not even convinced that he did rise above it, despite what the title says. He makes one comment in the book that whenever a white person says they are not racist, he automatically doesn't believe them because it is so hard to overcome attitudes that were taught from such an early age. But he also says that he had two choices as a child: submit to the community's beliefs that black people were inferior or rise above it. First of all, those two statements contradict each other. Second of all, while I do think you can rise about racist attitudes that were taught to you from infancy, I think it's way more involved than just deciding not to be racist. The author is way too simplistic because he suggests that really is the only thing to it.
June 26, 2015
I was just sitting down to write a short review of this book when I was alerted to the fact that our Supreme Court just ruled same-sex marriage as lawful and constitutional. This is an historic day in the epic story of American civil rights, and anything I might say about this book, examining the experience of a Southern white boy's perspective on 1960's desegregation, resonates with the euphoric feeling I have right now on learning our nation's Court's slim majority ruling. But I am also reminded through Grimsley's narrative, that law does not equal practice, we do not create a just society simply by authoring law, but it is the essential first step in building a culture that regularly and, in time, routinely, re-assesses its cultural assumptions. Fifty years after desegregation we still struggle with insidious racism. In fifty years, will we still struggle with insidious homophobia? Time will tell, and maybe authors like Grimsley, now in the class of 2015, will tell us one day how the ruling of June 26, 2015 marked their first step in shedding their skin.
I recommend this book for its honesty and frankness. Structurally, I was frustrated that some ideas were repetitive and belabored, and some ideas were left under-examined (is this a manipulation to read other Grimsley memoirs?) He examines his teen years minutely, but fails to connect those discoveries with the man he is, and the world that is, today. The reunion chapter left me befuddled. He makes some claims that make him appear brave and bravely vulnerable. Out of context, his words may hurt him. However, I admire his attempt to examine racism as his enculturation, not an isolated choice but intertwined in a larger worldview that most people respond to without consciousness. It is a practice we would all benefit from exercising.
This would be an exceptional choice for book group discussion.
I recommend this book for its honesty and frankness. Structurally, I was frustrated that some ideas were repetitive and belabored, and some ideas were left under-examined (is this a manipulation to read other Grimsley memoirs?) He examines his teen years minutely, but fails to connect those discoveries with the man he is, and the world that is, today. The reunion chapter left me befuddled. He makes some claims that make him appear brave and bravely vulnerable. Out of context, his words may hurt him. However, I admire his attempt to examine racism as his enculturation, not an isolated choice but intertwined in a larger worldview that most people respond to without consciousness. It is a practice we would all benefit from exercising.
This would be an exceptional choice for book group discussion.
June 19, 2018
Memoirs have never been my go-t0 genre because they by nature offer such a narrow perspective, but I do love Jim Grimsley's writing and that alone elevated this one for me. Having lived all my life up north, it was interesting to gain some insight into what it was like to be growing up as a white child in the south during desegregation. I appreciated the author's honesty in writing about his thoughts and actions and how his understanding of race evolved.
July 7, 2020
I was a little confused by the premise. He started off saying that he was going to explain how he was taught to be a racist even though he was raised by “good people,” but then went on to describe how the people who raised him were clearly racist and not good people at all. Honestly I’d be surprised anyone would come out of a culture like this and not be racist.
July 7, 2015
In all fairness, I only got halfway through this book before I had to stop. I'nm sure the author had it rough. I'm sure the author is a nice person who genuinely loves everyone based on who they are. And I'm sure that he has reached acceptance with himself and others. But this isn't a life-changing book for me. And while I'm comfortable with the N-word, I'm just not comfortable with entire pages of it showing up to justify why someone was once racist and no longer is. So I stopped reading it and probably missed the ultimate part of why this guy's self-revelation will help the world.
This book is, however, an excellent example of why bookclubs and booklists should continue to exist. I read this book and stuck with it longer because some list I ran across recommended it.
This book is, however, an excellent example of why bookclubs and booklists should continue to exist. I read this book and stuck with it longer because some list I ran across recommended it.
July 12, 2015
There is no dramatic story arc, but this memoir about the integration of public schools in rural North Carolina has a ring of truth to it. Jim Grimsley was a white insider (southern small town religious background) who was part of the community, but also just enough of an outsider (closeted gay, hemophiliac)to move a bit beyond the segregated cliques that everyone took for the natural order of life.
May 13, 2015
This was an interesting read on racism. Honestly, I found it quite shocking. Every time I hear or read racial slurs it feels like a punch in the chest, so I ended up skimming a large portion of this book.
September 1, 2021
This book is, first and foremost, a memoir. Rather than giving us a history lesson, it tells history as the author lived it—as a member of the first integrated classroom in his Southern school system. The author talks with shame and regret of some of the ways he behaved, and pride in others, as he evolved from a kid raised in a racist-by-default home and community into someone more open-minded.
Listening to this audiobook, I was struck by how many times I have heard people use their upbringing to excuse their modern-day bigoted attitudes. I know someone who will occasionally insert prejudiced asides into everyday conversation, and they always react to my aggrieved expression with a “I know you don’t feel that way, but that’s just how I was raised.” It’s time to stop using that excuse—it’s not working anymore. This guy changed and so can any reasonably competent person who sets their mind to it.
One aspect of this book that will likely have some cringing is that the author doesn’t attempt to censor the hateful language that was used around his home and community. The text repeats hate-filled words and phrases that were used constantly in everything from jokes to children’s rhymes, so readers might want to be aware of this going in.
Listening to this audiobook, I was struck by how many times I have heard people use their upbringing to excuse their modern-day bigoted attitudes. I know someone who will occasionally insert prejudiced asides into everyday conversation, and they always react to my aggrieved expression with a “I know you don’t feel that way, but that’s just how I was raised.” It’s time to stop using that excuse—it’s not working anymore. This guy changed and so can any reasonably competent person who sets their mind to it.
One aspect of this book that will likely have some cringing is that the author doesn’t attempt to censor the hateful language that was used around his home and community. The text repeats hate-filled words and phrases that were used constantly in everything from jokes to children’s rhymes, so readers might want to be aware of this going in.
September 6, 2021
Jim Grimsley is the same age as I am so our school years were similar in many ways. However, while he went to school in a rural part of North Carolina, I was in Central Florida, in a semi-rural area. But, in high school, bellbottoms and Boone's Farm we had in common. And smoking areas for students and that first bit of strangeness for suddenly, after elementary years being in an all-white school, learning what it was to have blacks in the same school and in our classes. It was an adjustment and as the author learned, those early racist "lessons" of our families and communities, subtle as they may have been in some instances, were not easy to shed. And still, I find myself trying to question my biases. As I will continue to do for the rest of my days, I hope.
January 13, 2016
Jim Grimsley grew up in Jones County, North Carolina during the period of integration. A class of '73 high school graduate, Jim shares stories of his experiences learning to interact with African Americans after being raised to think that having white skin made him superior to those with black skin. He remembers, when he was young, how dark-skinned people where practically “invisible” to him. I thought of Ralph Ellison's book Invisible Man and compared this same feeling from the black perspective, being “invisible,” to Jim's childhood memories. In my own growing-up memories, as a class of '80 graduate, integration was mostly accepted as I recall. I remember hearing about busing black students into white neighborhoods in efforts to even student black and white ratios.
When schools were integrated, many of Jim's classmates were enrolled in private “all-white” schools, but coming from a poor family he remained in public school with its newly mixed racial population. He talks about learning to fit in as a now white minority, while at the same time beginning to understand his own sexual orientation. Along with being a “closet homosexual” Jim is also a hemophiliac and had to abstain from sports activities or situations that might harm him. As a student Jim may not have fit with the “in-crowd,” but he was well liked by those close to him. He had both black and white friends, and was chosen by the school's principal to serve with other students on a human relations committee. There were decisions to be made about how to “fairly” choose a homecoming queen or debriefing after black students walked out (rioted) in protest over a black teacher being fired. Even the school choir, made of predominately black students, was analyzed. One question being, “how could whites sing like blacks?” There were activities and places: football games, school dances, the school's smoking patio, where both races came together. As they began observing each other in common territories they slowly began to accept each other as equals. I personally remember many of the same things about high school, but having lived in northern Tidewater, Virginia the south and its Confederate pride wasn't as predominate.
When schools were integrated, many of Jim's classmates were enrolled in private “all-white” schools, but coming from a poor family he remained in public school with its newly mixed racial population. He talks about learning to fit in as a now white minority, while at the same time beginning to understand his own sexual orientation. Along with being a “closet homosexual” Jim is also a hemophiliac and had to abstain from sports activities or situations that might harm him. As a student Jim may not have fit with the “in-crowd,” but he was well liked by those close to him. He had both black and white friends, and was chosen by the school's principal to serve with other students on a human relations committee. There were decisions to be made about how to “fairly” choose a homecoming queen or debriefing after black students walked out (rioted) in protest over a black teacher being fired. Even the school choir, made of predominately black students, was analyzed. One question being, “how could whites sing like blacks?” There were activities and places: football games, school dances, the school's smoking patio, where both races came together. As they began observing each other in common territories they slowly began to accept each other as equals. I personally remember many of the same things about high school, but having lived in northern Tidewater, Virginia the south and its Confederate pride wasn't as predominate.
June 13, 2015
Horribly boring. Initially I was very intrigued by a tale of a Southern white man relating how he was surrounded by racism and came to eventually shed those lessons. Although I was somewhat leery about reading his from a white man's perspective, the premise sounded really fascinating.
Unfortunately, the book does not live up to the hype. It traces Grimsley's childhood until graduation of high school (with a bit of an epilogue of reunions and post school) and society around him. How casual dropping the n-word was, how it was completely unacceptable for him, as a young white boy (then man) to be seen spending too much time with black people. Some of the racism was in your face and not at all subtle. Some of it was less so, underneath the surface and hidden by "coded" language or attitudes.
At first I thought the book was really interesting, never having lived in the South. He goes to school in what essentially a one room building where multiple class levels are taught together because there are so few students. He encounters black people for the first time as his classmates and it's interesting to see how the children relate.
But overall the book seemed very distant. There was not a lot of insight from the author, but this seemed like a rather really dry retelling of what he remembers. It was somewhat interesting to follow his journey of discovering his sexuality, but it seemed like he was trying to tie together the two. While he certainly would have been subject to more ridicule if he was more demonstrative about it, he was not and did attempt at a couple of heterosexual relationships. As other reviews point out, the author could hide his sexual orientation, while his black classmates could not hide their skin color.
It was interesting to see that even at the reunion the old prejudices still seemed to hold: the organizer of the class reunion asks the author why didn't their white classmates come, although they both know the answer.
Another book that didn't live up to the book reviews. Library borrow.
Unfortunately, the book does not live up to the hype. It traces Grimsley's childhood until graduation of high school (with a bit of an epilogue of reunions and post school) and society around him. How casual dropping the n-word was, how it was completely unacceptable for him, as a young white boy (then man) to be seen spending too much time with black people. Some of the racism was in your face and not at all subtle. Some of it was less so, underneath the surface and hidden by "coded" language or attitudes.
At first I thought the book was really interesting, never having lived in the South. He goes to school in what essentially a one room building where multiple class levels are taught together because there are so few students. He encounters black people for the first time as his classmates and it's interesting to see how the children relate.
But overall the book seemed very distant. There was not a lot of insight from the author, but this seemed like a rather really dry retelling of what he remembers. It was somewhat interesting to follow his journey of discovering his sexuality, but it seemed like he was trying to tie together the two. While he certainly would have been subject to more ridicule if he was more demonstrative about it, he was not and did attempt at a couple of heterosexual relationships. As other reviews point out, the author could hide his sexual orientation, while his black classmates could not hide their skin color.
It was interesting to see that even at the reunion the old prejudices still seemed to hold: the organizer of the class reunion asks the author why didn't their white classmates come, although they both know the answer.
Another book that didn't live up to the book reviews. Library borrow.
February 26, 2015
I read the ARC of this book. This is an interesting take on racism coming from a white male, particularly a gay Caucasian writer at that, who is trying to come to terms with his inner prejudices as he grew up at the cusp of the Civil Rights movement.
I'm a fan of Jim Grimsley's Dream Boy book so to read his life story as he dealt with his inner racism and vague struggles with his sexuality during the 60's fascinates me. The book comes off as a piece of therapy as Jim tries to make sense of his fear of African Americans and his feelings of resentment toward a particular community.
Though a good effort, the book doesn't quite delve too deep into his ignorance and his understanding of his resentment against blacks during this time. Just like Dream Boy where the ending is left hanging, I felt that Jim was doing the same and didn't really give clear, concise answers but left everything open ended.
Does the author still harbor some ill-will toward the African American community? That's hard to say. However, I think anyone reading this will probably look at their own hidden prejudices and hopefully rethink their ideas.
I'm a fan of Jim Grimsley's Dream Boy book so to read his life story as he dealt with his inner racism and vague struggles with his sexuality during the 60's fascinates me. The book comes off as a piece of therapy as Jim tries to make sense of his fear of African Americans and his feelings of resentment toward a particular community.
Though a good effort, the book doesn't quite delve too deep into his ignorance and his understanding of his resentment against blacks during this time. Just like Dream Boy where the ending is left hanging, I felt that Jim was doing the same and didn't really give clear, concise answers but left everything open ended.
Does the author still harbor some ill-will toward the African American community? That's hard to say. However, I think anyone reading this will probably look at their own hidden prejudices and hopefully rethink their ideas.
January 16, 2016
How I Shed My Skin : Unlearning the Racist Lessons of a Southern Childhood by Jim Grimsley (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill 2015) (Biography). This is the story of the Jones County, North Carolina Senior Class of 1973. Our narrator was a member of the school class that underwent forced integration in this teeny rural high school and community. The actual community is Pollocksville, NC, which is just across the bridge from little New Bern, NC. Not only is our narrator a member of the class being integrated, he was also coming to terms with the fact that the was attracted to the boys in his class rather than the girls, and on top of that, he was a hemophiliac who was not allowed to participate in any kind of sport activity. If you want to talk about an outsider, our author fits the bill in Jones County in 1973! This is an interesting story and a worthwhile read. My rating: 7/10, finished 6/2/15.
August 25, 2015
Grimsley brings home racism as he experienced it in his life, in his town, his school, his neighborhood in the 1960's. Anecdotal and told with much candor, Grimsley was a square peg in a round hole, awkward and shy. I learned a great deal about how Southern culture operates, in this biography. Grimsley has insights into the minds of many frightened people who did not want to desegregate the schools, wondering what would come next, including his parents and neighbors. In light of recent racist events, this book is especially timely.
July 7, 2015
Memoir of growing up in racist eastern NC by Jim Grimsley, who is exact same age as me. Described the process of racial desegregation at his junior high and senior high school in the 60's. Same experience as I had in SC, except I have better stories. He mentions he was intimidated by James Brown's music but to us he was a homie because he always lived nearby. Grimsley does have a good writing style. Good motivation for me to finish writing my book!
July 10, 2015
Grimsley pulls no punches nor spares himself in this memoir of a rural Southern county when school desegregation is implemented. His recollections of all the ways in which racism pervaded the thoughts, words, and actions of himself, his family, his classmates, and his community had me wincing more than once -- and sometimes in rueful recognition. Much food for thought.
June 9, 2020
An insightful and vigorous story. I have read many histories and memoirs of the civil rights era that is covered by author Jim Grimsley in How I Shed My Skin but this is the first that I have read that focused on the experience of a young white person moving through integration and then trying to understand it as an adult years later. As such it offered a very different perspective and reminded me, although Grimsley is a few years older, of my own experience of living in a racially and economically diverse suburb of Detroit but attending school in a nearly all white suburban school system (for background the school district cut across city lines… strange really). While not specifically a YA book this would be a great introductory work for younger readers interested in learning a little about our current social and political environment, how is it that we find ourselves once again fighting for respect and basic human dignity to be available to people of color. Grimsley would respond, I suspect, that we have to question our own understandings of what is right and good:
Somewhere in my memory, beneath all I have learned and experienced, there is still the little bigot I was meant to be. I can hope that I have changed; I can question my upbringing; I can examine my life for every nuance of bias and prejudice and racism; but even so I can never erase that earliest software, those assumptions that were part of my surroundings from my first breath. This is why, whenever a white person tells me he or she is not a racist, I never believe the statement. What we learn in those earliest months and years can never be deleted. … but this fact was never doom or a destiny. I changed. I learned to question the programming…
Advice that we can use now and always - to question what we think we know.
June 23, 2020
A hard look at what makes systemic racism so hard to expunge and the messy process it is to try to make the changes.
February 11, 2016
Full disclosure first: I know Jim Grimsley and have met him a handful of times. We have friends in common and we are contemporaries. I am little older, but we both graduated from high school in North Carolina in 1973. We both grew up in a South in transformation, he in Jones County, which is Down East, and I, in the Piedmont, Orange County, Chapel Hill. We both attended UNC-Chapel Hill at the same time, although we didn't meet until many years later, I think at a science fiction convention.
I have a great deal of respect for Jim as a writer and as a fine human being. As he wrote in my copy of Dream Boy, it's always nice when we run into each other. That book, by the way, was an important of my own coming out, but that is another story.
I applaud the courage it took Jim to write this memoir, a frank and candid exploration of, as he describes it, "unlearning the racist lessons of a Southern childhood." I think of my own experiences in those years. While Chapel Hill is, in some ways, another world from Jones County, even so it has its own history of race and discrimination and turmoil and change and growth. Jones County Schools integrated in 1966. I attended Chapel Hill City Public Schools, and when I began first grade in 1961, I was in the second integrated class. That meant that there was one black child in my first grade class. I have not forgotten him, Odell Moses, a small child, even for a first grader.
The number of African American children in my classes, of course, increased and relatively quickly. The black high school, Lincoln, was eventually closed, as was the white downtown high school, and a new one built out of town. My older brother went to the new high school. When I was in sixth grade, 1967-68, all sixth graders were sent to Lincoln, which was, for a year, the sixth grade center. The library had to be upgraded to meet 6th grade standards. I had my first African American teacher that year, Miss Bowser. Junior high saw racial unrest and protest and in the high school, what were called riots. Now I wonder if that was too strong a term, given what was happening nationally in those years, including the anguish and pain of Vietnam (both another story and an inescapable part of the history of race and racism in the US).
I went to my 40th reunion, as Jim did and writes about here, in 2013. He describes a banquet where a former teacher talks of those years of integration and reminds the students that they were "part of the group that ended segregation, that [they] were part of something important in the world" (269). Jim was the only white person from his class in the room. That wasn't how it was at my 40th at the Time Out Restaurant, but like in the high school cafeteria, whites and blacks tended to sit separately from each other. That there were many integrated conversations and groups does validate the truth of how Jim ends this memoir: "Lawyers, judges, adults declared that the days of separate schools were over, but we were the ones who took the next step. History gave us a piece of itself. We made of it what we could" (275).
The more things change, the more they remain the same. Things are not as they were, there has been progress, slow and painful and times, even bloody. Racism stained American history, it still does. It's not over, it's not finished. But such honest and frank accounts as this book are helping us on our journey out of our past.
I have a great deal of respect for Jim as a writer and as a fine human being. As he wrote in my copy of Dream Boy, it's always nice when we run into each other. That book, by the way, was an important of my own coming out, but that is another story.
I applaud the courage it took Jim to write this memoir, a frank and candid exploration of, as he describes it, "unlearning the racist lessons of a Southern childhood." I think of my own experiences in those years. While Chapel Hill is, in some ways, another world from Jones County, even so it has its own history of race and discrimination and turmoil and change and growth. Jones County Schools integrated in 1966. I attended Chapel Hill City Public Schools, and when I began first grade in 1961, I was in the second integrated class. That meant that there was one black child in my first grade class. I have not forgotten him, Odell Moses, a small child, even for a first grader.
The number of African American children in my classes, of course, increased and relatively quickly. The black high school, Lincoln, was eventually closed, as was the white downtown high school, and a new one built out of town. My older brother went to the new high school. When I was in sixth grade, 1967-68, all sixth graders were sent to Lincoln, which was, for a year, the sixth grade center. The library had to be upgraded to meet 6th grade standards. I had my first African American teacher that year, Miss Bowser. Junior high saw racial unrest and protest and in the high school, what were called riots. Now I wonder if that was too strong a term, given what was happening nationally in those years, including the anguish and pain of Vietnam (both another story and an inescapable part of the history of race and racism in the US).
I went to my 40th reunion, as Jim did and writes about here, in 2013. He describes a banquet where a former teacher talks of those years of integration and reminds the students that they were "part of the group that ended segregation, that [they] were part of something important in the world" (269). Jim was the only white person from his class in the room. That wasn't how it was at my 40th at the Time Out Restaurant, but like in the high school cafeteria, whites and blacks tended to sit separately from each other. That there were many integrated conversations and groups does validate the truth of how Jim ends this memoir: "Lawyers, judges, adults declared that the days of separate schools were over, but we were the ones who took the next step. History gave us a piece of itself. We made of it what we could" (275).
The more things change, the more they remain the same. Things are not as they were, there has been progress, slow and painful and times, even bloody. Racism stained American history, it still does. It's not over, it's not finished. But such honest and frank accounts as this book are helping us on our journey out of our past.
August 23, 2015
This book is tricky to approach context-wise, but my biggest complaint was with writing its self.
While the premise is interesting and I was curious to see how the author was able to recognize his ignorance and grow from it, I don't feel like that was this book. Most of the book takes place while the author was in grade school as a reflection and yet most of the book reads as if written by a young man still in that experience. With sentences like "So I don't know how the parents were invited." it seemed like not only was there not a lot of research going into this book (the whole book is anecdotal experiences) but as a reader I felt like connections weren't being made in the story. Sure, not every sentence needs to be a harsh examination of race, but a lot of the book's sentences started with "so" and "that" in a way that made me feel like I was reading an essay, not a narrative.
That being said I didn't feel like there was a solid theme carrying the narrative throughout the book in a way that tied everything together. The author alludes early on to his homosexuality, and acknowledges that he was able to hide his sexuality while you can't hide your skin color, and yet this is hardly explored. We don't find out when the author decides to come out or what lead him to it or if his experience with racism made me him more or less comfortable with the idea that his friends and family would accept him. In fact I found there to be very little examination of race at all in this book. While the author was a child during Jim Crow and there's the acknowledgement of inequality of the time, yet there's not discussion of why Jim Crow was instituted or how people around him experienced the shift in black rights or any kind of consideration of political climate and policies at the time. While there is certainly a part of the book that talks about the humiliation and injustice that people of color faced at the time none of it is anecdotal the way the rest of the books are, which bothered me in how it felt like lynch mobs were being swept away as a single line example in a paragraph about consequences people faced.
Also despite claiming being free of his racist past the author expresses regret and incredulity at a black classmate's response to a name he acknowledges is not a kind thing to call a woman. Instead of presenting this in the book as a teaching moment, he uses this same unkind name as reference to the incident throughout the book. There's no turning point or real assessment of the author's actions or biases in this book.
While honest and anecdotal, I am disappointed by the lack of real reflection on what made the author initially accept his racial bias and what later made him change it. To me the whole book read as 'well I went to school with black kids and stopped feeling that way', which I think could be articulated and examined so much stronger and clearer with the loaded history we have in this country. It's a fascinating premise that I didn't find particularly educational.
While the premise is interesting and I was curious to see how the author was able to recognize his ignorance and grow from it, I don't feel like that was this book. Most of the book takes place while the author was in grade school as a reflection and yet most of the book reads as if written by a young man still in that experience. With sentences like "So I don't know how the parents were invited." it seemed like not only was there not a lot of research going into this book (the whole book is anecdotal experiences) but as a reader I felt like connections weren't being made in the story. Sure, not every sentence needs to be a harsh examination of race, but a lot of the book's sentences started with "so" and "that" in a way that made me feel like I was reading an essay, not a narrative.
That being said I didn't feel like there was a solid theme carrying the narrative throughout the book in a way that tied everything together. The author alludes early on to his homosexuality, and acknowledges that he was able to hide his sexuality while you can't hide your skin color, and yet this is hardly explored. We don't find out when the author decides to come out or what lead him to it or if his experience with racism made me him more or less comfortable with the idea that his friends and family would accept him. In fact I found there to be very little examination of race at all in this book. While the author was a child during Jim Crow and there's the acknowledgement of inequality of the time, yet there's not discussion of why Jim Crow was instituted or how people around him experienced the shift in black rights or any kind of consideration of political climate and policies at the time. While there is certainly a part of the book that talks about the humiliation and injustice that people of color faced at the time none of it is anecdotal the way the rest of the books are, which bothered me in how it felt like lynch mobs were being swept away as a single line example in a paragraph about consequences people faced.
Also despite claiming being free of his racist past the author expresses regret and incredulity at a black classmate's response to a name he acknowledges is not a kind thing to call a woman. Instead of presenting this in the book as a teaching moment, he uses this same unkind name as reference to the incident throughout the book. There's no turning point or real assessment of the author's actions or biases in this book.
While honest and anecdotal, I am disappointed by the lack of real reflection on what made the author initially accept his racial bias and what later made him change it. To me the whole book read as 'well I went to school with black kids and stopped feeling that way', which I think could be articulated and examined so much stronger and clearer with the loaded history we have in this country. It's a fascinating premise that I didn't find particularly educational.
July 25, 2015
This book was recommended to be my a college friend, a fellow Southerner who has relocated to another part of the country. I am still in the deep South, and deeply troubled by the persistent personal and systemic racism of our country and region. As someone who is committed to rooting out racism within myself and in bringing up my child differently, I was very interested in discovering how this author rid himself of racism. The first section of this book really resonated with me. Like the author, I went from a segregated elementary environment into an integrated school (also in Eastern North Carolina, where I'd moved to a small town from a major city in another state) at a similar age. I was shell-shocked, terrified, slowly realized my own biases, clung to them, stood apart from my peers - white and black- and slowly adjusted. Grimsley's exploration of the subtle (or not-so) indoctrination of racism veiled by politeness, courtesy, social expectations were all things that I experienced and understood to be right at the time, but now make me cringe.
As the book progressed, Grimsley wrote as much of his life as a closeted gay youth as he did of racism. In the end, the book felt more like a social/personal history of integration experienced by a gay boy in Eastern NC than "unlearning the racist lessons". Grimsley says repeatedly that his friendships with his black classmates weren't deep, but merely relationships formed during the course of interactions during the school year. With few exceptions, courtesy, curiosity, conflicts were on the surface and echoed the greater social norms of that time.
In the end, I was disappointed with this book, or perhaps with my own expectations of it and the practical lessons it might have given me about shedding my own biases. That, it seems, is something we have to learn for ourselves.
As the book progressed, Grimsley wrote as much of his life as a closeted gay youth as he did of racism. In the end, the book felt more like a social/personal history of integration experienced by a gay boy in Eastern NC than "unlearning the racist lessons". Grimsley says repeatedly that his friendships with his black classmates weren't deep, but merely relationships formed during the course of interactions during the school year. With few exceptions, courtesy, curiosity, conflicts were on the surface and echoed the greater social norms of that time.
In the end, I was disappointed with this book, or perhaps with my own expectations of it and the practical lessons it might have given me about shedding my own biases. That, it seems, is something we have to learn for ourselves.
December 12, 2015
potentially interesting premise -- memoir of growing up in North Carolina just as schools were desegregating. He links his own feeling like an outsider, as a closeted gay teen, to his being ahead of the curve in accepting integration.
Seems like a great guy, but at least in my reading there just isn't much to it; it's not as though he played a leading role in social change, or had a dramatic epiphany, or methodically worked on himself to overcome racism. Short vignettes of mostly minor incidents, interspersed with occasional drama [e.g., the day the Black kids all walked out of school]-- mainly it just seems like he was/is a good guy who was initially very ignorant but learned more as he had more daily interaction with African Americans. which is awesome, but doesn't make for a riveting book.
Might have been more compelling as a short article focusing mostly on one scene -- the reunion he goes back for, the first time he goes to a school dance, the time a girl kissed him at school, etc. Those were more vivid than the generalized and usually mundane observations about what teachers were like, pastors' comments about race, etc.
Seems like a great guy, but at least in my reading there just isn't much to it; it's not as though he played a leading role in social change, or had a dramatic epiphany, or methodically worked on himself to overcome racism. Short vignettes of mostly minor incidents, interspersed with occasional drama [e.g., the day the Black kids all walked out of school]-- mainly it just seems like he was/is a good guy who was initially very ignorant but learned more as he had more daily interaction with African Americans. which is awesome, but doesn't make for a riveting book.
Might have been more compelling as a short article focusing mostly on one scene -- the reunion he goes back for, the first time he goes to a school dance, the time a girl kissed him at school, etc. Those were more vivid than the generalized and usually mundane observations about what teachers were like, pastors' comments about race, etc.
April 4, 2016
Thanks for the recommendation, David Dykes. Interesting read, but I was hoping for more. The author is just six years younger than me, but he remembered a lot more about growing up during the times of desegregation than I can. I just wish he had deeper memories. Perhaps the years that have passed is what made his recollections vague and repeated at times. Having grown up during the integration crisis in Little Rock, I am always hungry to learn more about that period. Because if there is one thing for sure, it is a fact that Grimsely repeats - adults just did not discuss what was happening in our lives at that time in the South.
There was also the subtext of the author dealing with his awareness of his homosexuality during his school years. Another subject one did nor broach in the 60's and 70's.
I am still mulling one of Grimsley's closing theories: "...whenever a white person tells me he or she is not a racist, I never believe the statement. What we learn in the earliest months and years can never be deleted." Food for thought.
By the way, my local library had to get this book from a Tampa library. Why does the Okaloosa County Library Cooperative not own a copy?
There was also the subtext of the author dealing with his awareness of his homosexuality during his school years. Another subject one did nor broach in the 60's and 70's.
I am still mulling one of Grimsley's closing theories: "...whenever a white person tells me he or she is not a racist, I never believe the statement. What we learn in the earliest months and years can never be deleted." Food for thought.
By the way, my local library had to get this book from a Tampa library. Why does the Okaloosa County Library Cooperative not own a copy?
August 28, 2016
I took this book as a biography. After all is how *I* shed my skin. But there is nothing about shedding any skin. Which is normal, I'd find it hard to believe someone who woke up one morning without any trace of racism after that kind of upbringing.
So it is a biography. But also it is presented as a chronicle of the time as seen from South Carolina. Good. I like that. Than I find out that was all gathered from memories decades old supplemented by reading local newspapers.
The author is 'a sissy'. That must have been terrible in that world. But probably the christianity of the author stops him from going into details. And he himself admits there was not much harm done.
In the end there are many story arcs that are opened. But none seems to end. And the jump from one arc to another is constant and apparently random.
This is a bad book. A lousy book. The is some merit because I kept turning the pages hoping things were going to get more clear. Sure, this is how life goes. But as I read from the last pages Jim is a writer. He should know life can be only the inspiration for a book, nothing more.
So it is a biography. But also it is presented as a chronicle of the time as seen from South Carolina. Good. I like that. Than I find out that was all gathered from memories decades old supplemented by reading local newspapers.
The author is 'a sissy'. That must have been terrible in that world. But probably the christianity of the author stops him from going into details. And he himself admits there was not much harm done.
In the end there are many story arcs that are opened. But none seems to end. And the jump from one arc to another is constant and apparently random.
This is a bad book. A lousy book. The is some merit because I kept turning the pages hoping things were going to get more clear. Sure, this is how life goes. But as I read from the last pages Jim is a writer. He should know life can be only the inspiration for a book, nothing more.
January 17, 2018
Such a strong, clear-eyed view of growing up in the Deep South in the 1960s and being the first generation that struggled with desegregation, with integration. It's this point that is driven home. As Grimsley writes: "...integration was a term that could not have frightened white people more if it had been designed to do so. In our eyes, integration assumed the white race was obsolete and would be superseded in the new order of things."
It especially helped me understand some of what my own parents experienced. They also came of age during this time. Were too young to be part of the Summer of Love, were disconnected from the hippies or the peace and love movements; too square to really be all that cool. But they grew up as the generation in South Florida struggling with integration. And they also managed to overcome most of their racist upbringing to be tolerant, understanding, empathetic and loving of differences. I recommend this to anyone with parents who came of age in the 60s/70s and to understand the struggles that remain in the New South.
It especially helped me understand some of what my own parents experienced. They also came of age during this time. Were too young to be part of the Summer of Love, were disconnected from the hippies or the peace and love movements; too square to really be all that cool. But they grew up as the generation in South Florida struggling with integration. And they also managed to overcome most of their racist upbringing to be tolerant, understanding, empathetic and loving of differences. I recommend this to anyone with parents who came of age in the 60s/70s and to understand the struggles that remain in the New South.
May 24, 2016
I listened to this audiobook after reading a very positive review of it in a book newsletter. I liked it OK, but did not love it. Since I am about the same age as the writer, I identified with many of the things he mentioned as going on at the time. I was interested to see how his experience in being among the first to experience school integration in the south differed from my memories of the time, growing up in the Midwest. Obviously, it was a very different atmosphere. For example, I do not really recall any controversy over school integration, but that was likely given the suburban area in which I grew up. However, the author did a good job of capturing the flavor of the times; and particularly in discussing the ways in which we often receive messages that black has negative connotations and white has positive connotations. It made me more cognizant of the unconscious ways in which we are influenced and in turn can influence others.
October 27, 2015
The goal of exploring one's past from the vantage point of age is solid.
Grimsley certainly sometimes captures clearly key characters in his early life in eastern NC, near New Bern.
He's effective when focused on school and teachers and church and local families, depicting their clear dictum that there's a clear line between races. Be polite, but don't mingle.
As he grows to a senior in high school, he sometimes secures the moving lines of integration in his schools, but the style of writing often left me wondering why so much had to be repeated and why key turning points were summarized rather than brought to light.
Certainly effective evocation of small town life, the knocks of poverty and alcoholism and inability to yet realize roots and causes and effects, but, in the end, after the class reunion, I wasn't convinced that skin was really shed and a new critter emerged.
But maybe that's the point, too. Shed skin and the meat remains?
Grimsley certainly sometimes captures clearly key characters in his early life in eastern NC, near New Bern.
He's effective when focused on school and teachers and church and local families, depicting their clear dictum that there's a clear line between races. Be polite, but don't mingle.
As he grows to a senior in high school, he sometimes secures the moving lines of integration in his schools, but the style of writing often left me wondering why so much had to be repeated and why key turning points were summarized rather than brought to light.
Certainly effective evocation of small town life, the knocks of poverty and alcoholism and inability to yet realize roots and causes and effects, but, in the end, after the class reunion, I wasn't convinced that skin was really shed and a new critter emerged.
But maybe that's the point, too. Shed skin and the meat remains?
May 3, 2015
Race and racism have been on a lot of people's minds recently. One only has to turn on the news or any social media to see that as far as we've come, we have so much farther to go. I was very interested in reading this book because I, too, was raised in a way that laid down the foundation for racist thoughts and reactions. I've managed to deprogram myself, but some traces of it linger and that makes me sad and angry at the people who laid that foundation. I'm deeply ashamed that in that half-second between an event and my higher thinking kicking in, a trace of that programming lingers. It bothers me a great deal, and it has become a high priority that in raising my son, that programming is not installed. I am much younger than Jim Grimsley, so I did not live through desegregation/integration, but many of the things he writes about struggling with internally are familiar to me.
July 14, 2015
Jim Grimsley writes candidly and unflinchingly about race in this memoir of growing up in rural North Carolina in the late 1960's when the schools were desegregated. Many people will have a difficult time hearing the POV of a gay white man on this topic, but what I found truly interesting was the candor with which he spoke about racist attitudes that all white people share-which I suspect all people share really-because we are taught early on in life about differences which truly become a part of our "software" as he puts it. The question then becomes what do we do with those attitudes? Do we recognize them and consciously choose a different course for ourselves? Or do we go down the road of bigotry and hate? It is an interesting thought and conversation as our society continues to struggle with our history. Quite well done and well written.
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