"Gripping. . . . one of the most essential commentaries on race and identity to date. . . . A compelling read full of honest, heartfelt narratives devoid of sentiment, rhetoric, and slogans. . . . One of the year's most enlightening, important reads on America's most enduring dilemma."
—Black Issues Book Review


"Powerful, raw reading."
—Austin American-Statesman


"A searing collection . . . All the essays are first-rate. . . . revealing...a deeper understanding of racism in America."
—Washington Post


"Rich in individual insights."
—Booklist


"My shelves...hold a couple hundred books on the subject, but When Race Becomes Real goes deeper than most."
—Louisville Courier-Journal


"A mesmerizing book....Refreshingly honest."
—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel


"No book will ever capture all the permutations of racial conflict and racial amity... But this book captures plenty."
—St. Louis Post-Dispatch


"They keep it real."
—The Hartford Courant


"A compelling and inspiring collection."
-Teaching Tolerance Magazine


“These amazing, original essays show how very personal...racism really is...at the local level and every day. Distinguished writers…bare their souls…in a rare book that ought to be in every home and library in the country."
–Choice Magazine


"More than an eye-opening and intriguing read...to be ...consulted in those edgy, shaky moments when it seems all but impossible to negotiate the treacherous thicket of defining who we are as Americans...as individuals...who we are as who we are."
—Lee Stringer, author of GRAND CENTRAL WINTER and SLEEPAWAY SCHOOL


"For all of us navigating blindly in a suddenly altered world, it has never been more important to know the 'other'—...how we think, what has hurt us/shaped us/healed us. I will reach for this book again and again...the wise, witty, unflinching, and honest company in it. The voices are elevating, the writing superb. While we have not yet overcome, we have come this far: the truth is out. It will move us."
—Mary Kay Blakely, author of AMERICAN MOM: Motherhood, Politics and Humble Pie


"Reading this invaluable book...you quickly realize that race still colors the outlook and vision of most of America—even her most sensitive storytellers, poets, journalists, commentators, and thinkers. At an hour when every principle that the almighty USA claims it stands for is at stake, this powerful book—entertaining, arresting—will give you plenty to want to defend and protect."
—Al Young, poet/novelist/essayist


"A remarkable group of 30 writers—black and white, women and men, young and old—truly make race real for us in this book...More than any historical or statistical account ever could, the writers movingly show us how the racial dynamics of postwar America have shaped everyone's life. Highly readable and extremely important."

—Mimi Abramovitz, author of REGULATING THE LIVES OF WOMEN: Social Welfare Policy From Colonial Times To the Present


“The former assistant attorney general in Texas and Massachusetts has given up the law for another form of litigation. By some loose miracles, fertile with inside stories, Singley has assembled… a collection of depositions on [race] from black and white writers. Had Harvard Law School changed her, as it changes so many others, we might not have gotten her book. We would be the poorer for it."
–Newsday