Skinfolk: A Memoir [Paperback]

Could a picturesque white house with a picket fence save the world? What if it was filled with children drawn together from around the globe? And what if, within the yard, the lines of kin and skin, of family and race, were deliberately knotted and twisted? In 1970, a wild-eyed dreamer, Bob Guterl, believed it could.A haunting, poignant story of growing up in a mixed-race family in 1970s New Jersey, in the tradition of Transracial adoption will never empower adoptees of color or our white family members to sidestep the realities of privilege, bias, and racism; as Ambitious, intellectually searching... Guterl doesnt spare himself when describing the inescapability of racial harm.... [His] strengths as a writer show in his unflinching analysis of this and other racially complicated scenes. Quietly searing. [Guterl] writes poignantly about his upbringing, particularly as the family and his siblings battled xenophobia and racism. Guterl, professor of Africana studies and American studies at Brown University and author of With precision and unwavering care, Guterl explores the ethics involved in his parents endeavor and confronts the consequences of even the best intentions. The result is an eye-opening, instructional, and necessary take on race in America. Guterl focuses much of the story on himself and his closest siblings, Bear and Bug, and on the realities of growing up in a big family. But he is clear-eyed about his privilege, even within his family, and about his parents who, with the best of intentions, have the whiff of white saviors.