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New Crisis, The, Sep/Oct 2002 by Fears, Darryl

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White Boy: A Memoir By Mark D. Naison (Temple University Press, $69.50/$19.95 paper)

When Mark D Naison began to write his master's thesis at Columbia University in 1966, he had a meeting with his master's supervisor William Leuchtenberg. In Naison's persona, Leuchtenberg saw a highly intelligent pupil with a undeniable love jones for Black causes. The student's attachment was so heartfelt that Lenchtenberg doubted Naison's ability to "maintain a scholarly distance from the subject matter" in his essay regarding the racially integrated Southern Tenants Farmers Union. Naison proved his mentor wrong and wrote an objective thesis. Now, 36 years later, Naison is proving his mentor wrong again with the emotional detachment he shows in his book, White Boy: A Memoir.

White Boy lacks the observation, color and emotion of a thoughtful, revelatory memoir. Naison begins his narrative with the details of his Jewish upbringing. He then takes the reader on his journey through African American life and liberation movements in New York and, ultimately, to his experience as an oddly placed, yet deserving, White professor of African American studies and history at Fordham University, where he is director of urban studies. As befitting any good memoir, Naison is at the center of its universe. But sadly, the supporting characters, including his longtime Black girlfriend "Ruthie," revolve around him like lifeless asteroids. It's a pity, because taking the extra step of fleshing out those closest to Naison would have added depth to this book. White Boy should offer a rare perspective on race relations, but falls short of its potential.

Naison fills the void with tales of his own activism, often with people whose name won't divulge or can't remember. His entryway into companionship with Black males is - drum roll, please - basketball. He shoots, he scores and on two occasions, wins fist fights, which made this reviewer wonder if he considered inserting the words "bad-assed" before the title of the book.

There's no doubting that Naison has the credentials to write this type of memoir. He either joined or had close connections to some of the most significant African American and White organizations influencing those times - including Students for a Democratic Society, the Congress on Racial Equality, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Black Panthers and the radical group of White mad-bombers known as the Weathermen. Naison logged time with Black tenants as a tenants' rights activist in Harlem, tutored Black kids as a teacher in a White-students-- meet-Black-world program called Double Discovery. Most importantly, he openly dated Ruthie at a time when racism in New York was still raw.

(Naison introduced her name in quotes, and notes in the introduction that names in the book may or may not be real. Why he doesn't come out and say whether certain names are fictitious comes off as pedestrian at best and deceptive at worst.)

In spite of his involvement in all those communities and movements, Naison fails to break any new ground in our understanding of them. He focuses so completely on himself that he misses opportunities to enhance our insight on the Black/Jewish relationship, personalities of White students who influenced Black organizers (and vice versa) or the meaningful conversations about race between a White man and a Black woman dating in one of the most pivotal decades in American history. Naison's inability to describe fully his girlfriend of six years calls into question his ability to interpret the Black community and the movements thriving around it.

Naison's mother and father brooded over his love affair with the Black girl. Ruthie was bright, busty and beautiful, but to his parents she was a threat to their station in life.

Naison writes that he grew up in a home with a Black maid and in a neighborhood that virtually swarmed with Black maids. His impression as a young boy was that the relationships were all fantastic, that his parents loved and respected Black people. He never really fully addressed the contradiction that he must have seen as a man, in his parents and in the community, which pulled up stakes when African Americans and Puerto Ricans started moving in.

When Ruthie and Naison break up, both later fall into the arms of same race partners. Describing his mother's reaction to his White wife would have added dimension to the story. True to the narrative's form, the subject is never addressed.

As much as I wanted to enjoy White Boy, the author failed to tell a compelling or meaningful story. While the book put me in touch with the inner-workings of important organizations that operated in the 1960s, I know little about the people who ran them. And although life-transforming events happened to Naison, I'm none the wiser about their human impact. Naison's "intimate" portrait has a fatal flaw: It's from the mind and not the heart.

Darryl Fears covers race issues for The Washington Post.