Proud. Black. Southern. (But I Still Don't Eat Watermelon in Front of White People)

By Issac J. Bailey

Barack Obama, the first African-American to be elected president, challenged American to be more open about the complexity of race. Proud. Black. Southern. provides fertile ground for a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1933466898
• ISBN13: 9781933466897
• Release Date: December 2008
• Publisher: Star Books
• Length: 146 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Excellent book to gain understanding & awareness

I enjoyed reading Issac Bailey's book as I liked the conversational style and the "humanness" of it. There were two statements in the chapter "Race gets in the Way of Common Sense" that I have come to realize as well through my faith and all my years working with people. They are ... "...he was a child of God, no better or worse than I." and "We're trying so hard to prove ourselves right, we've forgotten that it is more important to make things right." My realization is that every human being is just as important in the eyes of God as any other human being (or another way to say it is that there is no human being less important). We are all important. This includes the full spectrum of people from the powerful, rich and influential to the nameless masses of people we know little about. This is not reinforced by our society and as a result, it is something I have to remind myself of everyday. As an example, the people killed in the recent earthquake in Haiti were just as important as the Americans killed on 9/11. It pains me to think that people in Haiti were living the way they did. It also pained me as I witnessed what I considered to be a slow response to the dire situation of helping people trapped in the rubble who may only have a few days to live. I agree with Mr. Bailey's statement "We're trying so hard to prove ourselves right, we've forgotten that it is more important to make things right." A current example of "we're trying so hard to prove ourselves right" is the political stalemate in Washington between the Republicans and the Democrats. Another example is South Carolina's Senator DeMint's comment that his purpose was to make the "health care debate President Obama's Waterloo". Mr. Bailey reinforces this concept in the chapter "Exit Niche, Change the World" when he concludes the with "You can change the world today - if you love when others demand you hate. The world won't change until we elevate selfless courage above moral outrage." There were two chapters that I found particularly impactful. The first was the "The Hardest Piece I have ever Written" which demonstrates how we have all been influenced by the culture we live in and that we truly are in this together. The other chapter was "Talk About Race Causes Uneasiness" which I found to be true and leads to a culture where we are politically correct in public and judgmental in private and never learn as we don't talk honestly and challenge our assumptions. The Chapters on "White Guilt Obstructs Justice" along with "Memories of History Often Selective" and "A Southern Civil War Reality Check" helped me understand another perspective from what I learned in the north. The narrative in the chapter "Proud, not blind" also provided me a great deal of information. The chapter "Racism Hasn't Been My Biggest Obstacle" and "The Perils of Ignoring the Idiots" chapters gave me a lot of information about Mr. Bailey and his background, which I appreciated learning about. Finally, my favo

Thought provoking !

I have had the pleasure of attending a book signing for this book. I also had the pleasure of meeting Mr Bailey and his wonderful family. The book is a collection of articles that Mr. Bailey has written for his column in our local newspaper. They are thought provoking and straight from the heart. Mr. Bailey writes about everyday things that we can all relate to as well as the subjects that make you stop and think. He calls it as he sees it which is refreshing. I read this book very slowly, actually one story per day in order to savor it and reflect on each story that I read. If you want a good read on what it is to be a father, husband, neighbor, friend, coworker and also a black man in the south I highly recommend this book. No matter where you live we can all relate to the subject matter that is addressed.