Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Who’s Afraid of a Large Black Man, by Charles Barkley
I picked up Who’s Afraid of a Large Black Man, by Charles Barkley, on a whim at a bookstore in Oregon. Not being a sports fan, I had no clue who Barkley was, but I’m always interested in understanding more about the current state of race relations in the US, so the subtitle drew me in: race, power, fame, identity, and why everyone should read my book. As I started reading the book, I actually liked who he interviewed, how he structured the interviews, and what they had to say. It was a little depressing - if these prominent people can’t make society move, even a little teeny bit - then how stuck is the US in its social rut when it comes to racial tensions? Yikes! The funniest line in the book is George Lopez recalling a telephone conversation with a restaurant hostess who, upon hearing his surname, declared, “oh, you don’t sound Latino.” At which point he said (or perhaps thought), “and you didn’t sound stupid - until you said that.”