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Rating: 
Summary: A Book to Change One's Views
Review: I found this book, in first edition and excellent condition, at the Oakland Library book sale. I paid $3.60 for it and consider it one of the best bargains I've gotten in terms of value. This book needs to be read by anyone attempting to understand black culture, the effects of commercialism and the Disneyfication of our cultural heritage.
Told in a very personal way by a journalist who became fascinated by stories of an enclave of black upper-middle-class families and the society that grew around them in the days before desegregation, it also speaks volumes about our heritage as
Americans, white or Black.
If I got nothing else out of this book -- and I assure you, I did -- Rymer managed to explain as I had never heard it the reasons for the antagonistic, in-your-face angry Black youth that are the
hip-hop nation. In his view, white consumerism created them in search of something "authentic" to grind up and feed into he maw of the commercial pop exploitation machine. He likens them to
the minstrels of old, acceptable, even desirable, stereotypes to keep us from noticing that, at the core, we are all really very much alike.
I can't recommend this book enough. There are passages that may bring tears to your eyes, as they did to mine, eyes jaded by years as a white police officer usually working in non-white
neighborhoods. This is a book that will change the way I look at culture, history and America. May it do the same for you.
Rating:
Summary: A very touching biography and more.
Review: Having just finished "Slaves in the Family" by Edward Ball when I came across this book, I was struck by a completely different slice of black history and the black condition. Here is the story of the great-granddaughter of a black millionaire who leads a very privileged life, attends Oberlin college, has a fairly short but successful career as an opera singer in Europe, and then returns home to see her mother die, the family fortune dissipate and her world fall apart. It is also a plea for historical preservation and environmental protection. A very poignant and yet inspiring true story. I sang with Marvyne Betsch in the College Choir at Oberlin, and can still hear the unique dark timbre of her voice after forty years!
Rating:
Summary: A very touching biography and more.
Review: Having just finished "Slaves in the Family" by Edward Ball when I came across this book, I was struck by a completely different slice of black history and the black condition. Here is the story of the great-granddaughter of a black millionaire who leads a very privileged life, attends Oberlin college, has a fairly short but successful career as an opera singer in Europe, and then returns home to see her mother die, the family fortune dissipate and her world fall apart. It is also a plea for historical preservation and environmental protection. A very poignant and yet inspiring true story. I sang with Marvyne Betsch in the College Choir at Oberlin, and can still hear the unique dark timbre of her voice after forty years!
Rating:
Summary: A very touching biography and more.
Review: Having just finished "Slaves in the Family" by Edward Ball when I came across this book, I was struck by a completely different slice of black history and the black condition. Here is the story of the great-granddaughter of a black millionaire who leads a very privileged life, attends Oberlin college, has a fairly short but successful career as an opera singer in Europe, and then returns home to see her mother die, the family fortune dissipate and her world fall apart. It is also a plea for historical preservation and environmental protection. A very poignant and yet inspiring true story. I sang with Marvyne Betsch in the College Choir at Oberlin, and can still hear the unique dark timbre of her voice after forty years!
Rating:
Summary: Interesting and informative
Review: I bought this book because I grew up hearing stories about the "black" beach near Jacksonville and about the beach lady, MaVynee Betsch, and because I attended Spelman College under the extraordinary leadership of Johnetta Betsch Cole and could never believe "the beach lady" was her sister. Their family history is amazing, and timeless. My mother's side of the family is native to northeastern Florida. Rymer's undertaking to expose the world to the richness of these people is laudable. I learned so much about my history and the history of the place where I'm from that I'd never known. I took the book home with me (FL) for the holidays and my family was so deligted to learn so much about home, and to get reacquainted with the familiar things once known, that we had to go out and get additional copies of the book. It will be a standard in our family for years to come. In short, it is compelling and quite informative. To read this book is to get a true appreciation of a people and their glorious,on-going struggle. I highly recommend American Beach.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting and informative
Review: I bought this book because I grew up hearing stories about the "black" beach near Jacksonville and about the beach lady, MaVynee Betsch, and because I attended Spelman College under the extraordinary leadership of Johnetta Betsch Cole and could never believe "the beach lady" was her sister. Their family history is amazing, and timeless. My mother's side of the family is native to northeastern Florida. Rymer's undertaking to expose the world to the richness of these people is laudable. I learned so much about my history and the history of the place where I'm from that I'd never known. I took the book home with me (FL) for the holidays and my family was so deligted to learn so much about home, and to get reacquainted with the familiar things once known, that we had to go out and get additional copies of the book. It will be a standard in our family for years to come. In short, it is compelling and quite informative. To read this book is to get a true appreciation of a people and their glorious,on-going struggle. I highly recommend American Beach.
Rating:
Summary: Disney vs. democracy
Review: I have very mixed feelings about this book.
On one hand the book is very well written by an author who is obviously very intelligent. (He had me feeling intellectually challenged from time to time, and I consider myself to be a pretty bright person.) He presents, again and again, extremely thought-provoking ideas and profound comments about modern society. And in presenting his biting analysis of today's society he provides glimmers of hope that things can be changed for the better.
On the other hand, I found this book to be very depressing. The descriptions of the sins of the past, in the form of slavery and racial segregation and violence against blacks, are chilling. Today's problems, with lingering discrimination and the commercialization of American society, are also saddening. Sometimes I took a break from reading because the book made me so unhappy.
"American Beach" is a collection of four stories, three short ones and one quite long one. All but the last story are based on Amelia Island on the east coast of Florida next to the Georgia border, where the towns of Fernandina Beach and American Beach are. (The last story is based in Eatonville on the outskirts of Orlando, Florida.) And all but the first of the four stories has racial conflicts as a primary theme.
But Mr. Rymer makes it clear that today's racial problems, serious as they are, are not the biggest problems faced by blacks or by American society in general. He sees big business and it's influence on everything to be a greater source of apathy and alienation and disenfranchisement and environmental destruction.
In the view of Mr. Rymer, unbridled capitalism and the "culture of the corporation" are breaking down the values that the founding fathers stood for and that many generations of Americans up until WW II fought for, such as democracy. As an example he tells about the Disney-owned town of Celebration which proclaims itself to be the reincarnation of the old-fashioned American town, but which requires residents to sign a contract in which they let Disney operate the town without them, the residents, having any significant influence!
One of the author's claims is that cultural poverty can be worse than economic poverty. Blacks are especially hard hit by cultural poverty, having lost their roots when they were abducted from Africa. Black attempts to create their own culture often resulted in their best creations being usurped by the dominant white society and their less fortunate attempts being ridiculed by the whites.
But American society in general lacks roots, being a melting pot society. Added to this is the rise in the power of the corporations, who can transform functioning towns into ghettos on the edge of holiday resorts for the rich, and can commercialize and thus de-fang every kind of cultural protest. Bob Dylan becomes Muzak and street gangs and gun-toting rappers become movie fodder and hit entertainers.
Consumer capitalism has turned culture and even history into proprietary products, merchandise for the masses. And very few, other than Mr. Rymer and a few of the people he writes about in "American Beach", have even noticed the danger.
Highly recommended.
PS. I read the hardcover book, which has the subtitle "A Saga of Race, Wealth, and Memory". The paperback edition has the subtitle "How Progress Robbed a Black Town--And Nation--Of History, Wealth, and Power". I'm guessing both subtitles were dreamed up by the publishers' marketing departments in attempts to sell the book to people who want to read about American race conflicts. Shame on them.
Rennie Petersen
Rating:
Summary: Disney vs. democracy
Review: I have very mixed feelings about this book. On one hand the book is very well written by an author who is obviously very intelligent. (He had me feeling intellectually challenged from time to time, and I consider myself to be a pretty bright person.) He presents, again and again, extremely thought-provoking ideas and profound comments about modern society. And in presenting his biting analysis of today's society he provides glimmers of hope that things can be changed for the better. On the other hand, I found this book to be very depressing. The descriptions of the sins of the past, in the form of slavery and racial segregation and violence against blacks, are chilling. Today's problems, with lingering discrimination and the commercialization of American society, are also saddening. Sometimes I took a break from reading because the book made me so unhappy. "American Beach" is a collection of four stories, three short ones and one quite long one. All but the last story are based on Amelia Island on the east coast of Florida next to the Georgia border, where the towns of Fernandina Beach and American Beach are. (The last story is based in Eatonville on the outskirts of Orlando, Florida.) And all but the first of the four stories has racial conflicts as a primary theme. But Mr. Rymer makes it clear that today's racial problems, serious as they are, are not the biggest problems faced by blacks or by American society in general. He sees big business and it's influence on everything to be a greater source of apathy and alienation and disenfranchisement and environmental destruction. In the view of Mr. Rymer, unbridled capitalism and the "culture of the corporation" are breaking down the values that the founding fathers stood for and that many generations of Americans up until WW II fought for, such as democracy. As an example he tells about the Disney-owned town of Celebration which proclaims itself to be the reincarnation of the old-fashioned American town, but which requires residents to sign a contract in which they let Disney operate the town without them, the residents, having any significant influence! One of the author's claims is that cultural poverty can be worse than economic poverty. Blacks are especially hard hit by cultural poverty, having lost their roots when they were abducted from Africa. Black attempts to create their own culture often resulted in their best creations being usurped by the dominant white society and their less fortunate attempts being ridiculed by the whites. But American society in general lacks roots, being a melting pot society. Added to this is the rise in the power of the corporations, who can transform functioning towns into ghettos on the edge of holiday resorts for the rich, and can commercialize and thus de-fang every kind of cultural protest. Bob Dylan becomes Muzak and street gangs and gun-toting rappers become movie fodder and hit entertainers. Consumer capitalism has turned culture and even history into proprietary products, merchandise for the masses. And very few, other than Mr. Rymer and a few of the people he writes about in "American Beach", have even noticed the danger. Highly recommended. PS. I read the hardcover book, which has the subtitle "A Saga of Race, Wealth, and Memory". The paperback edition has the subtitle "How Progress Robbed a Black Town--And Nation--Of History, Wealth, and Power". I'm guessing both subtitles were dreamed up by the publishers' marketing departments in attempts to sell the book to people who want to read about American race conflicts. Shame on them.
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