Amanda's Reviews > How I Shed My Skin: Unlearning the Racist Lessons of a Southern Childhood

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.