Surviving the White Gaze

by Rebecca Carroll

  “Yeah, I mean,” Chris began, “I think Gramma-Rette and Grampa-Dave are fairly representative of most white people of their generation living in a small, rural town.”

  “But shouldn’t they care more because Mom is black?” Kofi asked.

  “In a best-case scenario,” Chris said, “yes.”

  “So it wasn’t a best-case scenario, Mom?”

  “Nope. Not so much,” I said, and folded the window visor down to block the glare of an early-morning winter sun on a long stretch of rural highway.

  Acknowledgments

  My literary agent, Maria Massie, is one of the most gracious readers and editors I’ve ever worked with. And that’s before she even put on her agent hat. Thank you, Maria, for your generous and rigorous work in helping me to shape the proposal for this book, and then taking it out into the publisher bidding wars and fighting for it like a badass.

  Thank you to Christine Pride for choosing this book and guiding it through so smartly and with such heart, patience, and clarity. And to Hana Park and Priscilla Painton for such a seamless handoff to the finish.

  Thank you to Megan Carpentier, my editor during the two years I was a columnist at the Guardian—you made me a better writer. You just did.

  Thanks to my former colleagues at WNYC—you wonderfully weird and wild troupe of journalists, creatives, podcasters, talkers, and listeners.

  Thank you to Crissle West and Kid Fury for The Read, which kept the sound of black joy and laughter and mess in my ear during my regular runs.

  No writer, living or dead, has influenced me more than Toni Morrison—I could not, and likely would not, have written this memoir if not for the resolute beauty of her peerless scope and skill as a writer, her regal existence as a black woman who loved her blackness and her womanness beyond measure, and her unyielding belief in the power and practice of doing language.

  Thank you to early readers and generous friends Kate Hinds, Trista Schroeder, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Nicole Cliffe, Cindi Lieve, Pam Koffler, Christine Vachon, and Anna Holmes. So grateful for the continued love and support from Davira Jimenez, Dorlan Kimbrough, Negar Ahkami, Randy Dottin, Bo Mehrad, Liz Dwyer, Peter Kane, Lisa Forero, Amissa Miller, and Karen Frillman.

  To my day ones—Leah Giberson, Rebecca Emeny, Monique Cormier, Sarah MacMillin, Caryn Rivers, and Michael Ladd—y’all are squad and I love you.

  And a special thank-you to you Caryn Rivers for coming into my life at the exact moment that you did, and for letting me choose you and Anwar as the extended black family I always needed and am now so lucky to have in you both.

  Thank you Renny, for your sweet, fierce devotion to family and staying connected.

  Joe Banks—I wish we’d had more time, and that the world had done better by you.

  Thank you Mom and Dad for modeling the integrity it takes to create and stay true to your own set of values and beliefs. And also for your great love. Thank you Riana for your beautiful heart and unbowed bravery, and for allowing me to share part of your deeply personal story in these pages. Thank you Sean for your quiet, steadfast loyalty.

  Chris, my love. Thank you for all of it.

  And Kofi, there is nothing and no one more magnificent than you.

  More in Personal Memoirs

  The Glass Castle

  Shoe Dog

  The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo

  Year of Yes

  An Invisible Thread

  Primates of Park Avenue

  About the Author

  © LAURA FUCHS

  REBECCA CARROLL is a writer, creative consultant, and host of the podcast Come Through with Rebecca Carroll: 15 essential conversations about race in a pivotal year for America. Previously, she was a cultural critic at WNYC and a critic-at-large for the Los Angeles Times, and her essays and criticism have appeared in the Atlantic, the New York Times, Ebony, Essence, the Guardian, and New York magazine, among many other publications. She is the author of several books about race in America, including the award-winning Sugar in the Raw: Voices of Young Black Girls in America. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and teenage son.

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  ALSO BY REBECCA CARROLL

  Uncle Tom or New Negro?: African Americans Reflect on Booker T. Washington and Up from Slavery 100 Years Later (ed.)

  Saving the Race: Conversations on Du Bois from a Collective Memoir of Souls

  Sugar in the Raw: Voices of Young Black Girls in America

  Swing Low: Black Men Writing

  I Know What the Red Clay Looks Like: The Voice and Vision of Black Women Writers

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  Copyright © 2021 by Rebecca Carroll

  Certain names and identifying details have been changed. Others, like members of my adoptive family, my immediate family, my birth father, and my day ones, are their true names.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

  First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition February 2021

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  Interior design by Ruth Lee-Mui

  Jacket design by Math Monahan

  Jacket photograph courtesy of the author

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Carroll, Rebecca, author. Title: Surviving the White Gaze : A Memoir / Rebecca Carroll. Description: First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition. | New York : Simon & Schuster, 2021. | Identifiers: LCCN 2020029852 (print) | LCCN 2020029853 (ebook) | ISBN 9781982116255 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781982116279 (paperback) | ISBN 9781982116323 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Carroll, Rebecca. | Interracial adoption—New Hampshire—Warner (Town) | Adopted children—New Hampshire—Warner (Town)—Biography. | Race awareness in children—New Hampshire—Warner (Town) | Racially mixed families—New Hampshire—Warner (Town) | African American women authors—Biography. | African Americans—Race identity. Classification: LCC HV875.65.N47 C37 2021 (print) | LCC HV875.65.N47 (ebook) | DDC 305.48/8960730092 [B]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020029852

  ISBN 978-1-9821-1625-5

  ISBN 978-1-9821-1632-3 (ebook)