White Lies: Race and the Myths of Whiteness

Maurice Berger grew up hypersensitized to race in the charged environment of New York City in the sixties. His father was a Jewish liberal who worshiped Martin Luther King, Jr.; his mother a dark-skinned Sephardic Jew who hated black people. Berger himself was one of the few white kids in his Lower East Side housing project. Berger's unusual experience - and his determination to examine the subject of race for its multiple and intricate meanings - makes White Lies a fresh and startling book. Berger has become a passionate observer of race matters, searching out the subtle and not-so-subtle manifestations of racial meaning in everyday life. In White Lies, he encourages us to reckon with our own complex and often troubling opinions about race. The result is an uncommonly honest and affecting look at race in America today - free of cant, surprisingly entertaining, unsettled and unsettling.