Loving across the Color Line: A White Adoptive Mother Learns About Race - Hardcover

Rush, Sharon

3.61

23 ratings by Goodreads

9780847699124: Loving across the Color Line: A White Adoptive Mother Learns About Race

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0847699129 ISBN 13: 9780847699124

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2000

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What would a liberal, white, civil rights law professor have to learn about race? When Sharon Rush adopted an African American girl, she quickly discovered the need to throw out old assumptions and start learning all over again. This is the moving, heartfelt memoir of a mother and daughter's loving relationship that opened the author's eyes to the harsh realities of the American racial divide. Only by living with her daughter through the day-to-day encounters and life passages did Rush learn that racism is far more devastating to blacks than most whites can ever imagine. Some of the stories are funny, others are sad, a few are almost unbelievable. But they all are poignant because they illustrate how insightful a little black girl of three can be about race and justice. With love and spirituality, Rush and her daughter live a deeply joyous life, just as they both have become increasingly active in working publicly and privately against racism. Dr. Sharon Rush lives in Gainesville, FL, where she is Professor of Law at the University of Florida.

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About the Author:

Sharon Rush is a civil rights lawyer and the Irving Cypen Professor of Law at the University of Florida. She has been studying race for over fifteen years and currently lives with her daughter in Gainesville.

Review:

Extraordinary. . . . In a series of sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes joyful accounts of her daughter's growing up, Sharon Rush provides the reader with deep insights into how racism works its evil in U.S. society. Most striking is the level of understanding that Rush has honed as she has learned the hard way the tough lessons known by every Black American. (Joe Feagin, University of Florida)

As Sharon Rush invites us into her world as the White mother of an adopted Black child, we share her delights in her smart and perceptive daughter and her shock and dismay during repeated encounters with racial prejudice. Only in this role did Professor Rush learn that even her civil rights commitments had not instructed her about the operations of daily mistreatments along racial lines. By sharing her painfully earned insights and her heart, Professor Rush shares the brute realities that we all must confront if we are ever to truly live together without a color line. (Martha Minow, author of Not Only for Myself: Identity, Politics, and Law)

I have read many books on race relations but none provides a more moving and penetrating portrayal of the racial divide and its adverse effects on interpersonal relations and human empathy than Sharon Rush's Loving across the Color Line. . . . Important for any serious discussion of the problems of race in America. (William Julius Wilson, Harvard University)

This multilayered memoir, written with honesty and passion, is a much needed and a powerful addition to the literature on race. (Publishers Weekly)

The question becomes, 'Can the author step away from her situation and analyze prejudice, sexuality, class, etc.?' In the case of Loving Across the Color Line, the answer is yes. Rush, a civil rights lawyer, not only takes readers into the world of a white mother and her adopted African American daughter but also uses her parenting experiences to re-examine her beliefs on race relations in America. Her conclusion: racism is very prevalent and more debilitating than she first thought. (Library Journal)

Loving Across the Color Line offers personal stories that relate the practical day-to-day meanings of race based on Rush's experiences with her daughter, as well as insights gleaned from her professional life as an activist and educator. The result is a book which is at turns, cultural criticism, touching memoir, and a guide to parenthood in the 21st century. (Ithaca Journal)

The book adds another dimension to our thinking about race in part because of the personal nature of the story and in part because many of the incidents of racism are seen through the eyes of a young girl. The innocence of the little girl's questions and her significant dismay at other's behavior is by far the most powerful aspect of the book and stays with the reader long after it is placed aside. (Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare)

A magnificent book. You cannot read this marvelous book and remain the same. Any family who is even thinking about adopting transracially should be required to read every page before making their final decision. (Adoption Quarterly)

...eye-opening... (The American Prospect)

Now Rush sees how when strangers pass each other whites will often greet other whites, but seldom does a greeting cross the color line. Unconscious racism shows up in many ways and she's not immune. (Gary Kirkland The Gainesvillen Sun)