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When White Is Black | 
 enlarge | Author: John A., Jr. Martin
Publisher: River's Bend Press
Category: Book
Buy New: $17.95
New (1) Used (3) from $14.62
Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 420960
Media: Paperback
Pages: 191
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.6
ISBN: 0972944540
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.04960730092
EAN: 9780972944540
ASIN: 0972944540
Publication Date: August 30, 2006
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 2 to 4 weeks
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
This memoir describes the social aspects of a young boy and his family growing up in an America where the shade of your skin can determine your fate and where the one-drop rule of Black blood you may hold within your lineage has far-reaching ramifications
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| Customer Reviews:
 Brilliant chronicle of a multi-cultural family August 14, 2007
L. Cardinal (CA)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
A fascinating and most unusual biography exposing the cruelty, indignity and ignorance of so many Americans during most of our country's history. Despite the anguish suffered by the author, the story is told in a warm, touching way, with humor permeating it and making for a most enjoyable as well as informative and memorable read.
When White is Black, by John A. Martin, Jr. May 21, 2007
Vivienne A. Hutchison (Cotati, Ca)
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
Covering more than two centuries, this book traces the challenges, disappointments, joys and experiences of a mixed race family in America. It is well written and I believe, will be enjoyed by many people who have a general interest in the history and ethnic makeup of this country. Additionally, it is also one that could be a valuable educational text in schools.
The book relates the experiences of a family whose lineage was not solely African, but includes, English, French and Native American. With such a racial mix, John Martin tells a touching and sensitive story of life that has, I believe, not been fully addressed in most general histories of the United States--that of the Mulatto/mixed races. He discusses family, many of whom, due to the lightness of their skin, lived naturally as white. Yet, due to the archiac "one drop rule," which deems any person with a trace of sub-Saharan ancestry, when officialdom steps in, is automatically categorized as "Negro."
Following a call from the Coroner's Office in his home town in California telling the sad news of his mother's death in an accident, and the subsequent official labeling of her as "Negro," even though she was 65% white, John Martin was prompted to look back at his Mulatto heritage. In this enjoyable book he takes the reader on a personal journey through two centurues of family experiences.
I enjoyed reading When White is Black. This book gave me a clearer understanding of American cultural history, particularly as it relates to people of mixed race.
Family, Race, Identity and the Curse of the One-Drop Rule March 29, 2007
Dera R Williams (Oakland, CA United States)
24 out of 24 found this review helpful
Family, genealogy, and racial categorization is explored in this family history and sociological look at race in When White is Black by John A. Martin Jr. In 1969, Martin, a former social service agency director, received a call in the early morning hours at his home in Berkeley, California, informing him that his mother, Eulalie, was killed in an accident. Just before the Alameda County coroner ended the conversation with Martin, he asked him what race is your mother? For though, she appeared to be white, the coroner questioned her living in a black neighborhood. Martin attempted to explain his mother's racial make-up as predominately white with Negro and Indian but accepted reluctantly that as a result of the one-drop rule, she would be classified as a Negro in death, as she was in life.
Thus began Martin's contemplation regarding the racial ambiguities of his mother's family that had plagued him most of his life. Martin methodically details the genealogy of both sides of his maternal lines of mixed-race people, beginning with his mother's paternal white ancestors who were from France and England. Martin's roots stemmed from Houston and Galveston by way of New Orleans. His family tree lists his ancestors with designations of mulatto, quadroon, octoroon, black, Choctaw and Seminole Indian. Beginning with the 1850 U.S. Census and through 1920, the government attempted to identify thousands of mixed-blood peoples with the term of mulatto. For one census year, 1890, the terms, quadroon and octoroon were added in an attempt to identify the percentages of African blood that existed in those who were not "white." Those designations were abandoned because of the unreliability of these labels and the census resorted back to using mulatto for all mixed black and white people until 1920.
Mama Peachey's family (Martin's mother's mother) passed for white until she was almost an adult. She told her children that they were different from darker-skinned Negroes and taught them to disdain, loud, ignorant, foul acting colored people. She told all five of her girls to be proud of their exotic good looks and to seek colored men who were educated and from other mulatto families as they would have better opportunities. In California, where Martin moved as a toddler, his mother and grandmother would regale the family with stories of being mistaken for white on the bus and putting those who made disparaging remarks about blacks in their place. After Eulalie's death, Martin and his brother would reminiscence about the times people would stare at them on the street when they were with their beautiful mulatto mother and how the teachers were always surprised when this white-looking woman showed up to claim her children, letting those teachers know her children were not the average Negroes and they were to be treated with respect.
Martin details the pain of living with a tortured mother who became an alcoholic. He left diverse Berkeley to go live with his father in Houston for a year during high school where he found the segregation of the 1950s Jim Crow Texas stifling, despite the black middle- class lifestyle his father's status afforded him. Though Martin never verbalized that his mother's alcoholism was attributed to her racial persona, he inferred that living in a nation where race is a prominent factor was a constant source of frustration. Martin also muses how ironic that his mother broke off an interracial affair with an Italian American man because of race, given the gradation of whiteness in her own family.
In the final analysis, Martin advocates for the abolishment of the one-drop rule and embracing a multiracial nation. It is his belief that white parents of mixed-children children should lobby the government for broader racial categorizations. Additionally he contends African Americans are opposed to a multiracial identification because it decreases their numbers. He thinks that although many blacks have mixed-blood they acquiesce to the black label out of a sense of loyalty that is misguided.
It was a walk down memory lane as Martin described landmarks of the Bay Area, particularly establishments in 1940s and 50s San Francisco, Berkeley and Downtown Oakland. This was a good look at identity and race with well-documented sources. I would recommend to those who research genealogy and have an interest in family history in a social construct.
Reviewed by Dera R. Williams
APOOO BookClub
History and memoir all at once January 5, 2007
J. Langley
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
John Martin has written an evocative and personal history chronicling the strange and illogical approach white Americans have had toward "mixed race" Americans. This book makes the absurdity of the "one drop rule" so clear, and raises questions regarding our approach to black and white and everything in-between - today. The writing is clear and honest and accessible. I also really enjoyed hearing about Berkeley and it's neighborhoods, from the 30's onwards.
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