His womanizing and lack of work ethic were not funny. It seems to me that when the author was telling her "story" she picked out the worst things in her father to describe (to show how "black" he was). It's hard to find the right words to describe this book. I recommend reading this book not just for the entertainment at the humorous portions, but for opening up some honest dialogue about race & class issues. Those who think so are the very people she mentions in the latter half of the book in my opinion.Īs a young Black woman who was consistently told that she "talked White", I can identify with the feeling of confusion/anger/bewilderment/frustration of being yourself and, as a result, baffling people who look at you & think you should conduct yourself in some other way. It's not a ploy nor is it schtick, but it is who he is. Why does it have to be "schtick" that her father acts this way? Why are people reading this as if none of it ever happened? There may be embellishments, but is it so absurd for a White man to "act Black" and have it be who he really is? I wouldn't describe her father as someone who wants to be Black, but as a man who wants to be himself and the him that he is happens to enjoy chicken gizzards. Reading previous reviews of the book made me a bit upset. Why is it that people think that race & class, when dealing with White & Black people, can be separated? Often the two are intertwined simply because of the history of the nature of our relationship with each other and anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves. Some felt that the book's message about race diminished as she talked more of class issues through her experiences. It made me laugh, and think, throughout the entire story. I think that it was a very well-written book. I’m Down is a hip, hysterical and at the same time beautiful memoir that will have you howling with laughter, recommending it to friends and questioning what it means to be black and white in America. And yet when she was suddenly sent to a rich white school, she found she was too “black” to fit in with her white classmates. Unfortunately, Mishna didn’t quite fit in with the neighborhood kids: she couldn’t dance, she couldn’t sing, she couldn’t double dutch and she was the worst player on her all-black basketball team. And so from early childhood on, her father began his crusade to make his white daughter Down. You couldn’t tell my father he was white. “He strutted around with a short perm, a Cosby-esqe sweater, gold chains and a Kangol-telling jokes like Redd Fox, and giving advice like Jesse Jackson. Mishna Wolff grew up in a poor black neighborhood with her single father, a white man who truly believed he was black.
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