Some of My Best Friends Are Black
The Strange Story of Integration in America
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
An irreverent, yet powerful exploration of race relations by the New York Times-bestselling author of The Chris Farley Show
Frank, funny, and incisive, Some of My Best Friends Are Black offers a profoundly honest portrait of race in America. In a book that is part reportage, part history, part social commentary, Tanner Colby explores why the civil rights movement ultimately produced such little true integration in schools, neighborhoods, offices, and churches—the very places where social change needed to unfold. Weaving together the personal, intimate stories of everyday people—black and white—Colby reveals the strange, sordid history of what was supposed to be the end of Jim Crow, but turned out to be more of the same with no name. He shows us how far we have come in our journey to leave mistrust and anger behind—and how far all of us have left to go.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In his latest, Colby (The Chris Farley Show: A Biography in Three Acts) takes a fresh, honest look at race relations, tackling the issue in four realms: school, neighborhood, workplace, and church. He probes school integration's turbulent history in Birmingham, Ala. test case for Brown v. Board of Education, and also the place Colby went to high school. He visits his old school district to track its bumpy progress from racial homogeneity to integration and to find out whether the black kids and the white kids still sit at different tables in the lunchroom. In Kansas City, Mo., he uncovers how real estate practices like blockbusting, redlining, and racial covenants created ghettos and urban blight, and how one neighborhood group is fighting back. Then, a former adman himself, Colby returns to Madison Avenue to examine an industry still divided into mainstream white agencies and niche-market black agencies. Finally, he winds up in a Louisiana Catholic parish scarred by racial violence and learns how the church was able to overcome a self-segregation perpetuated by decades of silence and mistrust. Pointing out the shortfalls of court-ordered busing, affirmative action, and other well-intentioned programs, Colby's charming and surprisingly funny book shows us both how far we've come in bridging the racial divide and how far we've yet to go.
Customer Reviews
A Must Read
As harsh a picture of my hometown, Kansas City, and my profession, real estate sales, as this book painted, it is still a wonderful, educational read. Beautifully written, devastatingly honest, told in absolute human terms, I will recommend this to everyone.
Dew2too
Wow....in a sad but understanding way. We have come a long way but we still have lots of growing to do. Thank you for encouraging me.
Excellent, entertaining, & useful
Oped your eyes to a lot.