Anyone who's been to a high school or college has noted how students of the same race seem to stick together. Beverly Daniel Tatum has noticed it too, and she doesn't think it's so bad. As she explains in this provocative, though not-altogether-convincing book, these students are in the process of establishing and affirming their racial identity. As Tatum sees it, blacks must secure a racial identity free of negative stereotypes. The challenge to whites, on which she expounds, is to give up the privilege that their skin color affords and to work actively to combat injustice in society.


From Kirkus Reviews
This insightful exploration of the varieties of Americans' experience with race and racism in everyday life would be an excellent starting point for the upcoming national conversations on race that President Clinton and his appointed commission will be conducting this fall. Tatum, a developmental psychologist (Mt. Holyoke Coll.) with a special interest in the emerging field of racial-identity development, is a consultant to school systems and community groups on teaching and learning in a multicultural context. Not only has she studied the distinctive social dynamics faced by black youth educated in predominantly white environments, but since 1980, Tatum has developed a course on the psychology of racism and taught it in a variety of university settings. She is also a black woman and a concerned mother of two, and she draws on all these experiences and bases of knowledge to write a remarkably jargon-free book that is as rigorously analytical as it is refreshingly practical and drives its points home with a range of telling anecdotes. Tatum illuminates ``why talking about racism is so hard'' and what we can do to make it easier, leaving her readers more confident about facing the difficult terrain on the road to a genuinely color-blind society. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Jonathan Kozol, author of Amazing Grace
"An unusually sensitive work about the racial barriers that still divide us in so many areas of life."


Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
"A commonsense manual on understanding some of the social dynamic at work in society."


Build
"A comprehensive recipe for how one can become an 'anti-racist.'"


About the Author
Beverly Daniel Tatum, Ph.D., is president of Spelman College and former professor of psychology and dean of Mount Holyoke College. An acknowledged expert on race relations in the classroom and the development of racial identity, Dr. Tatum participated in President Clinton's "Dialogue on Race" and lectures extensively throughout the country. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Walk into any racially mixed high school and you will see Black youth seated together in the cafeteria. What is going on here? Is this self-segregation a problem we should try to fix. or a coping strategy we should support? How can we get passed our reluctance to talk about racial issues?|

FROM THE CRITICS

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A commonsense manual on understanding some of the social dynamic at work in society.

Kirkus Reviews

A remarkably jargon-free book that is as rigorously analytical as it is refreshingly practical and drives its points home with a range of telling anecdotes.

Build

A comprehensive recipe for how one can become an 'anti-racist.'

Publishers Weekly

A clinical psychologist and professor at Mount Holyoke College, Tatum (who is black) brings some worthwhile perspectivesdevelopmental psychology and racial identity development theoryto issues of race. Thus, she observes that, when asked for self-definition, whites take their race for granted, while students of color do not. She notes that adults don't know how to respond when children make race-related observations, such as confusing dark skin with dirt. Answering the book's title question, she explains that black students, in late adolescence and early adulthood, are first grappling with "what it means to be a group targeted by racism," and thus seek solidarity in an "oppositional identity." Such solidarity often remains necessary, even in corporate settings. She observes credibly in her chapter on affirmative action that the "less-qualified" person is usually seen as black, not a white woman, and suggests that whites are more likely to favor their own in cases when the minority applicant is equally qualified. However, she argues that only poorly implemented affirmative action programs promote the unqualified; her treatment of this issue is too pat, as is her treatment of affirmative action in academic admissions. Tatum recommends all-white support groups to work through feelings of guilt and shame regarding racism. She also calls for more dialogue about race; such dialogue, however, would likely have to include such touchy subjects as questions of race and crime in order to be fruitful. Author tour. (Sept.)

School Library Journal

YASituations perceived as a social segregation are frequently observed at the middle school, high school, and university levels. Here, a look at the school scene leads into a deeper study of racial relations. With a combination of anecdotal material, anthropological data, and psychological insight, Tatum examines the development of racial identity. In balanced sections, she considers understanding blackness in a white context and the development of a white identity itself. There is also an examination of critical issues in Latino, American Indian, and Asian-Pacific American identity development. About a fifth of the book consists of resources, notes, and annotated bibliographies that include videos. All materials are current. A list of multicultural books for children is grade differentiated. Tatum advocates affirmation of whatever race one may be, recognition of injustice, and resolution to resist unfair privilege.Frances Reiher, Fairfax County Public Library, VA Read all 6 "From The Critics" >

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

"A valuable book by a fine psychologist who knows how to listen to young people."  — Harper Collins - New Media