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I am 24, I grew up in the Bay Area in private school from K-12 and then onto an elite liberal art college in Western Mass, and finally graduate school here at NYU, and I completely empathize with her experiences because they are also my experiences. They are the experiences of my Black friends from college who found solace and solidarity in being with one another. And we thought we were alone and crazy until we met each other in our first year dorm. Like the author, my parents did not discuss how difficult it was to be the first to attend and graduate from college in their families. Now, that I'm older they are letting on a little bit more. My paternal grandmother who moved to Oakland from Louisiana during World War II never spoke about her experiences growing up until a few years ago. So, I was just in the dark, navigating "being the only one" by myself, trying to be twice as better as my white counterparts. And it's sad because Baszile is right, in the 21st century my experience as a youngtwentysomething is not different from someone growing up in that first generation of integration. Her telling of our history and her voice is long overdue. Hopefully this can be become required reading for educators, teachers, and students across the nation. Thank You, Ms. Baszile.

Regarding segregation in American culture and society, hopefully someday people with brown skin will not have to use the term "African" in describing their identity, any more than Americans with Italian or Greek ancestors need to refer to themselves as Italian Americans or Greek Americans. My parents were war refugees from Austria but I do not need to refer to myself as an Austrian American. Do you think that is because I was not segregated from mainstream society on the basis of my family's history or the color of my skin? Your guest's honesty and soul searching brings me to say the following which is not directly related to her theme: I believe all Americans are boxed in and segregated, through our social structures, particularly a Prussian-based education system that educates most of us to be nothing more than consumers, tracking the creme de la creme toward rewarding careers and the rest toward the dull thinking consumers we are, lacking critical thinking skills, ever struggling to make ends meet, and always believing in the delusion that the good life is around the corner.. . It's wonderful that African Americans are looking to the future. That is more than most white people can do.

My parents, South Carolinians, moved to the midwest in the mid-1950s, and then settled in Iowa City, IA in 1959. As a result of growing up as I did I have always called myself "bi-cultural" and for many years the work of my adult self (and of most of my siblings) was to forge a psychological integration, a person I could live with. It was tortuous but I'm here to prove it can be done. Others weren't so fortunate, those casualties who managed to live to middle age as I have -- well I can spot them a 1000 miles away.

I envy and admire the Basziles, Obamas and others who wrote memoirs and I hope I pray they reach those who need them. Many in my generation could not write those books. Part of it was the embarrassment and shame (co-existing with privilege) associated with that upbringing and part of it was the publishing vogue for undiluted, unconflicted Blackness that was so dominant. I appreciate that the ground has now been broken and will read Ms. Baszile's book.

Thank you.

This is a wonderful topic. Racism is covered all over the place, segregation, etc. But this topic comes close to my experience: the only Puerto Rican growing up in a mostly Irish neighborhood. For a while, that meant denying my culture. After I was done with that, it meant reclaiming my culture. A lot more work than how you did it, I think. But I still think my parents thought they were protecting me in how they brought me up, and were trying to give me the best they could. And I did go to a very good college, and then graduate school. So, in a way, it worked.
Thank you for doing this work.

I've had the inverse experience of Ms. Baszile in that I was a white child going to black and Hispanic schools in Hartford, CT. I was also a plaintiff in Sheff v. O'Neill. In Ms. Baszile's opinion, are there any legal or social policies we can pursue as a society that would help stimulate better integration? We seem to be stuck in the same place today as we were in the 1970s. It's not only white kids that go to segregated schools--it seems poor black and Hispanic children are even more segregated.

I didn't grow up in the US but I find the story very interesting. I will buy the book.

i haven't read the book....but any memoir that quotes decades-old conversations at length needs to be read with skepticism.

and the author's slick answer to the host's good question about how she recalled these conversations in such detail was not convincing to me. we all lived our own childhood's and its tramatic/dramatic moments. but i know i couldn't reliably quote more than one sentence from 30 years ago.

if the author is claiming to be doing more than that, buyer beware. it's too easy to say "oh, i wrote it down in a journal." as a 9 year old? really?