White Mother, Black Sons : BEYOND THE WHITENESS OF WHITENESS: Memoir of a White Mother of Black Sons.<i> By Jane Lazarre (Duke University Press: $17.95, 136 pp.)</i>

Key experiences often define us in a way that gives shape and focus to our lives. Jane Lazarre details such an experience in “Beyond the Whiteness of Whiteness.” In 1991, Lazarre attended, as did I, a Ford Foundation conference in Richmond, Va., where we were taken to see an exhibit on slavery at the Richmond Museum of the Confederacy. Among the artifacts at this powerful testament to the violence and inhumanity of slavery was a harness--Lazarre describes it as “an iron belt joined to an iron necklace which led up to a bell”--hanging several feet above a man’s head. Few could view it without wincing or gasping.

My thoughts were of my ancestors, recorded on the 1850 slave schedules as “mulattoes,” owned by a white family in a community less than 50 miles from the Museum of the Confederacy. Lazarre’s European Jewish ancestors were not among those slaves depicted at the exhibit, but she also felt a connection “as the mother of two young black men who are the fifth free-born generation of people enslaved for 14 generations.”

Lazarre that afternoon contemplated her life and marriage (in 1969) to a black man and the upbringing of her two African American sons. As late as 1967, marriage between a white woman and a black man would have been illegal in Virginia and many other states and would have subjected both her and her husband to prosecution.

In spite of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark case, Loving v. Virginia, which struck down anti-miscegenation laws in 1967, Lazarre and her husband were not “free” when joined together as husband and wife. As Lazarre has learned during her 27-year marriage, changes in attitudes and customs frequently lag behind changes in laws. “Beyond the Whiteness of Whiteness” recounts how that lesson was repeated vividly, time and again. As a mother, she saw the slights, heard the insults and shared the pain visited on her two sons, whose skin-tones placed them clearly in the African American column in our society.

“Beyond the Whiteness of Whiteness” is Lazarre’s compelling story of one mother’s honest efforts to reach across the chasm between white and black America to comfort and guide her sons as they navigated their way to adulthood and self-sufficiency. During their growth and maturity, she changed so fundamentally that she refers to the process as “re-creation.” Unlike others, Lazarre embraced the responsibility of her “re-education in the matter of race.” Still, there were painful lessons to learn. Mistakes were made along the way.

Lazarre shows that it takes a strong person to reach across the color line and forge a new identity, especially one contrasted with the privilege that white skin brings to the bearer. Lazarre honestly recounts the embarrassment that she feels when she uses her white skin to provide opportunities for her family that are available simply because of her color. It is this honesty that gives the book its genuineness.

Lazarre is most to be admired for her willingness to let her sons develop their own racial identity yet at the same time not be frightened by their movement into a world she cannot inhabit. She stands willing to help them gather all the tools they will need to survive in a world, which, in spite of their biracial background, will invariably classify them as black. Nevertheless, she has a lesson for her sons as they approach full adulthood: To search for a strongly rooted self and to learn not only to live with ambiguity but to be empowered by it.

Though the book demonstrates her personal courage, her metamorphosis was not accomplished unaided. Lazarre admits her re-education was possible because of the strong support of both the black and white sides of her family. Her Jewish father embraced his African American son-in-law and her husband’s family welcomed her into their midst. White women before her and even many today often do not have the support of both sides of their families when they reach out to a partner across racial lines.

While interracial unions were not necessarily embraced in the ‘60s and ‘70s, the change in public acceptance of such marriages by that time benefited Lazarre and her family. Lazarre has shown the positive self-growth that can come when individuals are allowed to grow together unrestricted by social conventions and beliefs as to who should be with whom. As Lazarre says, “It may take most of a lifetime to achieve the courage of vulnerability while remaining resilient and strong. . . . To feel the safety and confidence, the entitlement, of those who know they belong.”

The structure of “Beyond the Whiteness of Whiteness” is unusual in that it is built around several key episodes in Lazarre’s life. It is successful at what it proposes to do, which is to give an honest portrayal of one woman’s transformation as the white mother of African American sons.