Baynard Woods

This is the only book in my life that I have ever thrown into the trash. And it gave me such a satisfying feeling. I was about halfway through reading it and just couldn't stand it anymore and didn't want to inflict it on anyone else. But then I had second thoughts. As much as I did not want to spend any more time with the author, I did feel that he was trying really hard to explain his life experiences, so I felt that by rejecting the book I was rejecting his humanity, and I didn't feel right about that.

The author recounts events from his life in details that often do not reflect well on his treatment of others, and I appreciate how he didn't hide aspects of the stories that reflected poorly on him. However, what turned me off is that I felt he still hadn't taken ownership of the pain his choices caused to those closest to him. If it were a novel, you would have to say the author didn't provide full enough characterizations to make these relationships understandable. As it is a memoir, you have to wonder, does he still not see anything wrong in his behavior? It is just a strange feeling, to read a memoir from the point of view of a person whose behavior you can't understand.

In terms of his exploration of his whiteness, I do feel like the author had some good insights, and that is was a worthwhile exercise for him to review the events of his life where his whiteness gave him advantages, or put blinders on how he saw things. To grow up in South Carolina when he did, with Jim Crow only recently gone, and to grow up thinking the way things were was normal, and to have it gradually dawn on you that it was all nuts, that is a powerful story.… (altro)