Rebecca Carroll

A stirring and powerful memoir from black cultural critic Rebecca Carroll recounting her painful struggle to overcome a completely white childhood in order to forge her identity as a black woman in America.

Rebecca Carroll grew up the only black person in her rural New Hampshire town. Adopted at birth by artistic parents who believed in peace, love, and zero population growth, her early childhood was loving and idyllic—and yet she couldn’t articulate the deep sense of isolation she increasingly felt as she grew older.

Everything changed when she met her birth mother, a young white woman, who consistently undermined Carroll’s sense of her blackness and self-esteem. Carroll’s childhood became harrowing, and her memoir explores the tension between the aching desire for her birth mother’s acceptance, the loyalty she feels toward her adoptive parents, and the search for her racial identity. As an adult, Carroll forged a path from city to city, struggling along the way with difficult boyfriends, depression, eating disorders, and excessive drinking. Ultimately, through the support of her chosen black family, she was able to heal.

Intimate and illuminating, Surviving the White Gaze is a timely examination of racism and racial identity in America today, and an extraordinarily moving portrait of resilience.… (altro)

A stirring and powerful memoir from black cultural critic Rebecca Carroll recounting her painful struggle to overcome a completely white childhood in order to forge her identity as a black woman in America.

Rebecca Carroll grew up the only black person in her rural New Hampshire town. Adopted at birth by artistic parents who believed in peace, love, and zero population growth, her early childhood was loving and idyllic—and yet she couldn’t articulate the deep sense of isolation she increasingly felt as she grew older.

Everything changed when she met her birth mother, a young white woman, who consistently undermined Carroll’s sense of her blackness and self-esteem. Carroll’s childhood became harrowing, and her memoir explores the tension between the aching desire for her birth mother’s acceptance, the loyalty she feels toward her adoptive parents, and the search for her racial identity. As an adult, Carroll forged a path from city to city, struggling along the way with difficult boyfriends, depression, eating disorders, and excessive drinking. Ultimately, through the support of her chosen black family, she was able to heal.

Intimate and illuminating, Surviving the White Gaze is a timely examination of racism and racial identity in America today, and an extraordinarily moving portrait of resilience.… (altro)

SocioCultural Study
Review of the Paramount Audio podcast via Audible Originals (April 2021)

Billie was a Black Woman is a limited series podcast produced as a adjunct to the film The United States vs. Billie Holiday (Feb. 2021) dir. Lee Daniels. It does not provide a great deal of biographical information about the iconic jazz singer Billie Holiday (1915-1959) but will likely increase your interest in the singer and her music if you are not previously familiar with then.

During the course of the podcast several people related to the film, and others, provide observations about the Holiday's difficult life and career. Overall this is to stress the importance of the role she played in civil rights and the rise in prominence of black artists in the mainstream. Actress Andra Day and director Lee Daniels provide the background on the film. Singer Mariah Carey, supermodel/personality Naomi Campbell, actress/LGBTQ activist Laverne Cox and professor/activist Angela Davis provide expanded context on Holiday's mythic figure and its inspiration to later artists and activists. There is a bit of a cringe element with Carey choosing to plug her own biography several times during her interview.

Perhaps the most surprising element in the podcast is that the film is not inspired by any specific Billie Holiday biography, but rather by the book Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs (2015) by Johann Hari, in which

... Hari reveals his discoveries entirely through the stories of people across the world whose lives have been transformed by this war. They range from a transsexual crack dealer in Brooklyn searching for her mother, to a teenage hit-man in Mexico searching for a way out. It begins with Hari's discovery that at the birth of the drug war, Billie Holiday was stalked and killed by the man who launched this crusade. - excerpt from the book's synopsis.

Trivia and Link
The film The United States vs. Billie Holiday premiered in Feburary 2021 and you can see its trailer on YouTube here.… (altro)