I'm Down: A Memoir
By Mishna Wolff
3.5/5
()
About this ebook
Mishna Wolff grew up in a poor black neighborhood with her single father, a white man who truly believed he was black. "He strutted around with a short perm, a Cosby-esqe sweater, gold chains and a Kangol—telling jokes like Redd Fox, and giving advice like Jesse Jackson. You couldn't tell my father he was white. Believe me, I tried," writes Wolff. And so from early childhood on, her father began his crusade to make his white daughter Down.
Unfortunately, Mishna didn't quite fit in with the neighborhood kids: she couldn't dance, she couldn't sing, she couldn't double dutch and she was the worst player on her all-black basketball team. She was shy, uncool and painfully white. And yet when she was suddenly sent to a rich white school, she found she was too "black" to fit in with her white classmates.
I'm Down is a hip, hysterical and at the same time beautiful memoir that will have you howling with laughter, recommending it to friends and questioning what it means to be black and white in America.
Mishna Wolff
Mishna Wolff was one of the 2009 Sundance Screenwriting Lab fellows. She is the author of the memoir I'm Down. She is a humorist and former model who grew up in Seattle. She lives and writes in New York City.
Related to I'm Down
Related ebooks
Three Girls from Bronzeville: A Uniquely American Memoir of Race, Fate, and Sisterhood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Her: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sigh, Gone: A Misfit's Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Good Girl: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Her Last Death: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Filthy Beasts: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Girls of Tender Age: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5North of Normal: A Memoir of My Wilderness Childhood, My Unusual Family, and How I Survived Both Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Invisible: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Free Cyntoia: My Search for Redemption in the American Prison System Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Grand: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pieces of My Mother: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Clearly Now, the Rain: A Memoir of Love and Other Trips Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKooKooLand Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5So Close to Being the Sh*t, Y'all Don't Even Know Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dirty Secret: A Daughter Comes Clean About Her Mother's Compulsive Hoarding Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Name All the Animals: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5After Perfect: A Daughter's Memoir Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5No One Tells You This: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Going Home Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Southern Discomfort: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Where Did You Sleep Last Night?: A Personal History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Welfare Brat Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Love Prison Made and Unmade: My Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wreckage of My Presence: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Who Do You Think You Are?: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Truth Be Told: A Memoir of Success, Suicide, and Survival Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Yellow Tulips: one woman's quest for hope and healing in the darkness of bipolar disorder Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGuts: The Endless Follies and Tiny Triumphs of a Giant Disaster Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Personal Memoirs For You
I'm Glad My Mom Died Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Child Called It: One Child's Courage to Survive Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Glass Castle: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Stolen Life: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Solutions and Other Problems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Mercy: a story of justice and redemption Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Everything I Know About Love: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Counting the Cost Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dry: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: the heartfelt, funny memoir by a New York Times bestselling therapist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stash: My Life in Hiding Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Choice: Embrace the Possible Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bad Mormon: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Good Girls Don't Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mediocre Monk: A Stumbling Search for Answers in a Forest Monastery Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Becoming Sister Wives: The Story of an Unconventional Marriage Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Related categories
Reviews for I'm Down
181 ratings33 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5One of the best audio books I've listened to in a LONG time. Read by the author. She tells a great coming of age story, by turns hilarious and deeply touching. Not like anything else i've encountered.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When a white child grows up in a white family with a father who thinks he’s black, acts like he’s black and expects his wife and 2 very young daughters to be just as black as the neighborhood they are growing up in, it can be a bit unnerving. Sure, he fits in, having grown up there and already making his mark, but in the few years away, when the children are born, there is a separation that Mishna, at just 6, can’t quite bring together.When her parents divorce shortly after, she and her younger sister stay with their father while their mother deals with life as it is. Forced to attend a summer “day camp” while their dad works, Mishna finally finds the voice to “cap” back at the other kids who ridiculed her as soon as she walked through the door. With new found chutzpah, she attains the friendships she desired as well as the confidence to gain a few more.Finally making her way in school, she is again upheaved when she is sent to a different school for smarter kids. Rich kids. Still trying to please her father, who seems to prefer her dumb & cute, she is tasked with tending to her younger sister, her homework, the extra curriculum he signs her up for, and to adore his new girlfriends, as long as they are.Wanting a better future, she decides, at 12 years of age, that scholarships are her ticket to the best college, but how? Knowing her father got in via football, she sets her goal for bulking up to play. In the meantime, she joins a swim team and soon excels at the breaststroke. So much so, she is asked to join a real team, but she wants the glory of football, because, after all, “It’s not like you sit down and watch Monday night swimming.”Home life escalates into animosity over Mishna’s desire to better herself and the needs involved with such. Her father has remarried, his new wife supports them all with the addiction of her own two children and feels Mishna should be contributing more, monetarily and domestically. Arguments erupt, Mishna continues to subjugate herself, hoping to appease, and continues to fail. Realizing she can never be all, she leaves to live with her mother, finding a new peace and outlook on life. Wisdom enters with the realization that even rich kids have messed up lives and she needs to own her own, center herself, to attain any goals she holds.If you loved The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, you will equality enjoy this. Filled with much the same parents, sibling adoration, smack-yourself-in-the-head situations and financial deprivation, it is inspiring to see her win in the end.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Details family and racial struggles of a white girl whose father believes he is black; set in '70s-'80s Washington. Hilarious.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Funny, entertaining, and poignant, Mishna Wolff's memoir was my favorite read this summer. Wolff takes us through her childhood and teenage years growing up as the gifted daughter of a father who prizes "being down" over things like violin practice and good grades. This book describes what it's like to feel young and alienated, and how to eventually make your own way and make peace with the family you have.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mishna grew up in the black neighborhood and just didn't quite fit it. She tested well and ended up in a private school that was mainly white, and really didn't fit in there either. This is her story of trying to find her place in her neighborhood, family, and life. I thought that it was pretty good. Interesting interpersonal dynamics abound.I will say that on a personal note, I HATED that her father let his second wife insult his children and take her anger out on them. If he stood for nothing else, I would have at least respected him for that. As it is, I hope Mishna made her peace with him, but I don't know if I would have...
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5a quick funny memoir that is enjoyable to read. Good reflection on parenting one received. Interesting that the irresponsible, immature, "down" father turned out two motivated and successful daughters that are both involved in the entertainment industry. Teen readers will enjoy this book for the span of experiences Wolff has over the course of the book.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mishna was a white girl raised in a poor black neighbourhood in Seattle. Her father wanted to think he was black, so that’s the neighbourhood he chose to raise his two daughters. Mishna, in particular, had a hard time fitting in when she was young. Once she finally started making friends in the neighbourhood, though she still lived there, she had tested high on some academic tests, so she had to switch to a school in a rich neighbourhood with smart rich kids, and once again, she didn’t know how to fit in there. I really liked this book. She wrote it, mostly with a humourous slant, but it was sad to see that her father did not treat her well. His girlfriends varied on how they treated Mishna. She did learn later on that even some of the rich kids, despite their money, had problems, as well. She was born not long after me, so I certainly identified with much of the 80s culture, in general, which is always fun. It was a quick read.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I really enjoyed the majority of this memoir -- Mishna Wolff takes her childhood, a time where she never fit in to either the black world she was raised in or the white world she aspired to be in, and makes her identity crisis hysterical, disturbing, and thought-provoking. I was a little disappointed in how she ended the book -- but I was also curious as to what happened to her afterwards.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5So, this book is really really fun and really really sad. This combo might not be for everyone. Its about a very smart girl from a dysfunctional family trying to make a place for herself in the world. If that premise sounds good then you should defiantly try this book. I'm Down, it well written and enjoyable. I'd look for more books by Mishna Wolf.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Quick enjoyable read about a white girl finding her place and sense of self in two very different sides of Seattle in the 1980's. Mishna Wolff is the product of her father's brief foray into East Coast hippiedom before he returned (with his wife & young daughters) to his roots back in Seattle--a predominantly black, working-class neighborhood. The dad & younger sister fit in perfectly, whereas Mishna and her mom are like aliens (by the way the whole family is lily white). Mishna is just starting to fit in a little better when her mom gets her into a fancy private school mostly full of rich kids, and now it is time to start all over again. Will she ever find her place? Full of twists, turns, humor and misery, this book will appeal to anyone who has ever struggled with their identity and their place in the complex family situations that are so normal today.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My 14year old daughter gave me this book to read and told me I'd like it. She was right, I loved it. It made me laugh, and at times want to cry. As someone who has been the only white in an all black neighborhood so many of Mishna Wolff's experiences rang true and brought back memories.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I actually enjoyed reading this book from beginning to end. The author, Mishna Wolff, bravely writes with humor about such sensitive topics as race, class, and parenting.The main focus of the book is the story of her father identifying with black culture so much that he decided to act like a "black man" and, among other things, to raise Mishna and her younger sister in a predominately black, low-income neighborhood. Mr. Wolff listens to black music, decorates his home blackishly, socializes with black men in his neighborhood, and dates black women. He even speaks in a blackish dialect. There were several moments while reading when I literally laughed out loud. For example, desperate as a child to fit in with her black, low-income peers, Mishna teaches herself how to play the dozens. Eager to try her newfound skill on her unsuspecting mother, who'd recently gotten interested in Buddhism, Mishna cracks on her mother, "You're so dumb, you thought Buddhism was about booty."And there are many other laugh-out-loud moments. Even though the humor waned considerably during the last fourth of the book, it was still a compelling read as Mishna tries to recall, from a child's perspective, what it was like living with a father whom she dearly loved, but whose love for her wasn't always shown in ways easily comprehensible to a child.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The book was heartwrenching as much as it was funny.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I loved 95%of this book. Mishna Wolff has a great comedic sense, and her stories of being a very "white" child growing up in a black-focused family are hilarious... but they are very sad too. She sometimes flounders in self pity, and it's easy to see that as an adult, but as a kid I'm sure it'd be super hard to deal with, so it's really not fair to judge her feelings as adult. The story is easy to read and the audiobook narrator is great. I was absolutely loving this book, ready to give it 5 stars, but then the book started to drag and the fights and harsh feelings took over the unique and funny kid's perspective, and I was ready to put it down after the umpteenth time she screamed about her parents. I hope she's been able to find peace.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mishna grew up in a poor black neighborhood in Seattle. Her parents divorced when she was young and she and her sister Anora were raised by her dad. Her mom left - she had to go find herself. But the weirdest thing about 2 girls being raised by a single, dad in the 'hood? Being white. "White, white, white, white, white, white, white, white. I think it's important to make this clear..." (1) And so begins one of the funniest, most heartbreaking, memoirs I've read in a long time.I'm always skeptical of memoirs...but Mishna Wolff's story had me at hello.. .or was it when she said her dad "believed he a was a black man...It wasn't an identity crisis.." (1) Wolff tells the story of trying to fit in, and make friends and be cool. Learning how to "cap" on people (sassy putdowns) and deciding on her future: "Solid Gold Dancer, Capper, Anesthesiologist, Governor, Assasin". (32) She takes us throough her father's romances, usually with beautiful women and him trying to remodel the house, himself. Mostly leaving things undone. Meeting Zwena, who at 10 years old, was the "Julia Child of the food stamp set." (42) Zwena could cook up a mean fried, bologna sandwich. Ah...I remember those days...so much of what Mishna Wolff was describing reminded me of my childhood. I grew up in a poor, black neighborhood and she captured all the humor that helps you not only survive but thrive!Once Mishna goes to IPP, she feels as if she doesn't fit in anywhere anymore. Always the outcast, the different one. Wolff tells us how she coped, what she did for attention, the tough decisions that seemed to be made for her... She worries herself into tension headaches trying to figure out what is going to happen to her the rest of her life...she was twelve at the time. Trying to find the security that she wasn't getting at home. Through it all, she just wanted her dad's acceptance, wanted him to think she was "down", too.I loved this book. I put aside everything, I didn't even stop for dinner. I was mesmerized, completely and totally engrossed. Wolff's voice brought her story to life and I was right there, living my own version of trying to be down. It was painful towards the end but well worth the time. It left me with a Wow! It was truly awesome! I could read it again right now!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Very entertaining book. Enjoyed it immensely. Plus I think it will be a fun book to discuss at book club.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Spotted the cover (how could it be missed!?!) and right to the shopping cart this one went! Got home, opened the book, and `straight up' took to the humor. What other way does one parlay "she was shy, uncool, and painfully white" up against "too black to fit in with her white classmates"? The best way to invest in this very painful observation is to stroke it with humor, which Mishna does well. A little piece along however, I did sour on the uneven (at times) tone in the little ones' voices. Sounded too much like adult POV's being stressed. Ultimately I choose not to harp on it because once I moved closer to the end, Mishna's story really blossomed into a memoir to treasure. No words other than Mishna's can upright a distressing childhood that humored me, annoyed me, saddened me, made me angry to the point of restructuring this comment... and then warmed my heart to the bittersweet end. Mishna touched on a key point; short-sightedness! ...in which depending on the visionary, it means something different to every one of us. I'm Down is a hard run up against a brave, beautifully won race. I loved, loved this memoir!
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I had a like/not-like-so-much relationship with this book. I kept reading reviews about how histerical it was, so I think my expectations on the funny factor were a little too high. Overall, I enjoyed reading this book. Wolff is painfully honest and gives readers an all-access pass to her childhood...which was definitely unique. Growing up white in an all-black neighborhood, with a father who thinks he's black is not your run-of-the-mill childhood.As unique as her childhood was, however, the major takeaway I took was that most little girls want to please their fathers and be loved by them, regardless of race or class. It was a sweet book, and totally made me appreciate my father. Maybe a good gift for Father's Day?
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dang girl! s'up? This delightful memoir of Mishna and her father, John (who - despite all attempts, would not comprehend he was NOT a brother) and their very meshed family, living in Washington State in the early 80s. Sad, heartfelt, beautifully written! I really hope to read more by Ms Wolff
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5While very readable, this memoir strikes a false note for me. I keep thinking that I'd like to read the book she'll write ten years from now.Her father was a narcissistic, self-centered, delusional, thoroughly ridiculous man. I suspect he really did love both of his daughters, to the best of his ability, and despite how he used them as sock puppets in his lifelong fantasy. But the neglect and the concomitant abuse, and the dry, humorous way Wolff recounts it seem irreconcilable to me.One of the last events in her memoir, about swimming in the lake, she tells as if it were a bittersweet memory that ultimately shows their genuine love for each other. I can't buy it. Maybe something really does prove to Wolff that her father did his best, but I don't see it here.I still recommend the book because it's well-written, and the cross-cultural dynamic is compelling. Ultimately, though, I find it unsatisfying.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Book OverviewMishna Wolff was born to white hippie parents in Vermont. However, when her family moves back to Seattle, her father drops the pretense of being "a white man" and becomes the "black man" he fancies himself to be. Having grown up in a predominantly black neighborhood during his childhood, Mishna's father immerses himself in the speech patterns, clothing and culture of his black friends. He expects his daughters to do the same. For Mishna's younger sister Anora, this wasn't a problem. However, Mishna has a hard time finding her place in the neighborhood hierarchy of kids. And when her parents divorce and her mom moves out, she finds herself struggling to fit in. Left largely to her own devices, Mishna must find her own way to survive.When her dad enrolls the girls in summer camp, Mishna is out of her element and regularly terrorized by the other children. But her quick wit and smarts help her find a survival strategy that works for her: capping. Capping is the fine art of "yo mama" jokes where participants engage in trading escalating insults. Mishna excels at capping, and it is her lifeline in the hard-knock world of kid society. I was becoming a machine—or at least I thought I was. All I know is I had purpose: 1. Me ruling. 2. You sucking. I had aspirations. I had goals. I had a lot of friends, and a lot of bruises.But just as Mishna begins to fit in at the neighborhood, her mom steps in and gets her transferred to a school for gifted children. Feeling she has found her place in the world at last, Mishna is excited—even thought attending the school means a long commute on city buses. Alas, although Mishna finds herself with children who have the same skin tone, she is still an outsider. Now she doesn't fit in because her family is poor. Her survival method of capping doesn't quite work at her new school, and she is forced to find another way to fit in. Eventually, she finds a small group of friends who bond over drawing and fantasy stories (think elves and wizards). But she finds an escape for her increasingly difficult home life at her friends' homes. Sleepovers were like mini-vacations for me. I got to step out of my family responsibilities and into my friends' homes where I was catered to like a crippled person. Dad wasn't in the habit of asking if he could make me something to eat, or if I wanted him to rent me something while he was at the video store. In fact, the last time I'd had Zwena over, he got her to clean the kitchen after I made dinner.Besides documenting her struggles to fit in to "kid society" in the neighborhood and at school, the book also chronicles her difficult and confusing relationship with her father, who she alternately loves and loathes. Mishna is torn between loyalty to her father and her wish to escape the lifestyle he inflicts on the family. He dates a series of successful and attractive black women, and each one seems like a potential lifeline to Mishna—an escape from the dirty, uncertain household her farther provides. Here is Mishna describing the visit to her father's new girlfriend's apartment: And the whole place was covered in light cream carpet—which I tiptoed onto like it was hot lava. I knew that cream was for careful people, and no matter how Dad was acting, that wasn't us. We were the kind of people who needed dirt-colored things.Eventually, her father remarries, and Mishna gains some new siblings. But, increasingly, her aspirations and dreams drive her to move in with her biological mother. In the end, Mishna is faced with a choice: staying with her sister and father in the life she is familiar with but never really fit or moving in with her mother and pursuing her dreams for the future.My ThoughtsI'm a bit conflicted how I felt about this book. On one hand, parts of the book were very funny and Mishna's story is unique. I've not read a memoir with this point of view before. (Let's face it, memoirs with crazy, alcoholic mothers are a dime a dozen.) However, the book doesn't quite dig deep enough to find the pathos underneath the comedy. Although the book is written in a comic and almost breezy tone, much of Mishna's story is characterized by neglect and perhaps even abuse. She and her sister must often scrounge for food and can never count on having enough money for groceries. They are responsible for housecleaning and meal preparation. They are forced into uncomfortable situations time and time again. And although Mishna shares this information in the book, I don't think she truly faces head-on how difficult her father made her life.I think part of the problem is that she hasn't come to terms with her father. In fact, I felt the end of the book left things very unresolved between the two of them. I needed to know more about how things ended up between them. Although her father was a constant presence in her life, his wants and needs always seem to come first and many of his choices are just downright inappropriate and selfish.Perhaps Mishna Wolff wrote this book without having had enough time to be able to see her father through more mature eyes. She seems to skirt the pain, suffering and sadness that seem to constantly bubble below the surface of her entire childhood. Although I'm glad she was able to find comedy in her upbringing, I feel she owes it to the reader and herself to find the truth of her family life. Some of the best memoirists (I'm thinking of Mary Karr and Jeannette Walls) are able to recognize and write eloquently about both the comedy and the tragedy of their lives—thereby creating a piece of writing that fully describes and embraces the human condition. This memoir falls a bit short.My Final RecommendationPerhaps if Mishna Wolff had waited a few more years to write this book, she would have been able to create something with a little more meaning and pathos. As it is, this is an amusing memoir, but it lacks the insight and maturity to make it something more. If you are big fan of memoirs, this book isn't a bad read; it just lacks the insight that elevate the best memoirs to works of art or true statements on what it means to be human.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Funny memoir of a very white girl growing up with a father who believed he was a black man. Mishna never quite fits in anywhere - not with the black kids in her neighborhood, nor with the white kids in her new school. Her father is persistently unemployed and changes girlfriends frequently. Mishna loves her younger sister and even her father but she constantly struggles to find her own place in the family and in the world, a search that is both heart-breaking and hilarious.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5I'm uncertain about the point of this book. There is such bitterness that spews forth throughout the narrative, but most of it revolves around the awkwardness of the author as an adolescent, and her strained relationship with her family. The story as advertised seems to be lost in the cloud of recriminations. I ended up skimming through the last half of the book to see if it went anywhere but it really didn't; it just ended and by then I didn't really care.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This book is soooo funny!
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Memior of a daughter whose father thought he was black. Funny at times and a quick read.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Narrated by the author. Funny and heartbreaking and frustrating and back to funny again. You really feel for teenaged Mishna being stuck between two worlds, black/white, rich/poor, privileged/lacking, striving/status quo, and never quite fitting comfortably in either. Her dad is a trip, as we used to say back in the day.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Not very funny nor terribly interesting.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Yes, the cover is oddly compelling, but I recommend this to anyone raised in an affluent all white neighborhood. It's possible that this coming of age memoir affected me on many levels because I grew up in similar circumstances and currently work in a poverty stricken area. Mishna Wolff, "Little Wolff" to her father's cohorts, could possibly be writing from a view that is obscured by time, embellished for effect, and biased to protect her teenage overly dramatic self. The writing is dynamic and the language flows from Wolff as narrator to Wolff as third grader in a hilarious blend. I could smell the stinky gym, hear the loud domino games, and feel the cement pebbles of her wall. Who am I kidding? I especially recommend it to anyone, especially if you grew up in a predominately African American neighborhood or school. It's a quick read ans you will find an author with whom you can relate and might follow her for more books.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5This book was straight up disturbing. I make jokes about things that are sad or embarrassing as part of my processing. I am a fan of rather dark humor. Still, there are some things I can't laugh at, and I am glad of it. On that list are child abuse, child endangerment, child neglect, abandonment, domestic violence, people who are so lazy they leech off the system rather than getting off their asses and going to work, etc. I am a Marc Maron fan, so I expected a delightfully screwed up archness here from his ex-wife, but all I got was sadness and rationalization from a woman twice as damaged and half as clever as she thinks. Additionally, this book is not about what it purports to be about. It is about class-divisions (which is good fodder for a better book) rather than the complications of living "Black" (whatever that means.) Based on the cover blurbs publications as and unsophisticated as Entertainment Weekly and as dull as Time Magazine thought this was hilarious so perhaps it is just me, but I really don't think so.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is one of those books that doesn't really go beyond its premise, which is okay. The author was raised in a poor, black neighborhood by a single white father who was convinced he was black and raised his children accordingly. It is funny, and the anecdotes are well-crafted and bring all the cringiness of being an awkward kid in the 80s into vivid focus. It's a very personal story, it never gets into any larger issues about race and class. The parenting is abysmal, overall the author downplays it as eccentric, so once again I'm in that maddening memoir-reading place where I can't stop wondering if she knows it was abuse but is taking a positive view because what else can you do after the fact, or if she truly sees it as merely quirky.
Book preview
I'm Down - Mishna Wolff
PROLOGUE
I AM WHITE. My parents, both white. My sister had the same mother and father as me—all of us completely white. White Americans of European ancestry. White, white, white, white, white, white, white, white. I think it’s important to make this clear, because when I describe my childhood to people: the years of moving from one black Baptist church to the next, the all-black basketball teams, the hours having my hair painfully braided into cornrows, often their response is, So . . . who in your family was black?
No one. All white.
However, my dad, John Wolff, or as the guys in the neighborhood called him, Wolfy,
truly believed he was a black man. He strutted around with a short perm, a Cosby-esqe sweater, gold chains, and a Kangol—telling jokes like Redd Foxx, and giving advice like Jesse Jackson. He walked like a black man, he talked like a black man, and he played sports like a black man. You couldn’t tell my father he was white. Believe me, I tried. It wasn’t an identity crisis; it’s who he was. He was from the neighborhood
—our neighborhood.
We lived in an area of south Seattle called the Rainier Valley that your average white person, at the time, wouldn’t have gone to without a good reason. Not that there weren’t plenty of reasons to visit the Rainier Valley—there were. Right off M. L. King Jr. Way, I lived near the Langston Hughes Auditorium, not far from the Medgar Evers pool, close to the Douglass-Truth Library, down the street from the Quincy Jones Auditorium, which incidentally, was in the high school Jimi Hendrix went to. On the literary tip, Iceberg Slim had run a gang of hoes not far from where we lived.
But there were virtually no whites. There were the occasional middle-class white hippies who moved onto our street to escape bougie-ness, but they usually moved away when they had kids. And my dad always wound up hating them. Sooner or later they’d be showing off
by throwing around their bachelor’s degrees or fixing their roofs, and we’d be banned from any interaction with them. Even before it was hip, Dad was keepin’ it real.
He’d moved to our neighborhood as a child in the early sixties, back when it was a white and Asian neighborhood. That was before school busing programs, when middle-class white people started moving out of the cities and into the suburbs, because, you know.
My grandparents were too cheap to be racist. You don’t sell when the market is down. And as the neighborhood got blacker—so did my dad. He was in high school when he started to help the Black Panthers with the breakfast program. He played sports and he made his friends. They were the brothers and he was cool.
But after a quarter of college football failed to make him a star, my dad reinvented himself as a hippie and ventured east to Putney, Vermont. He grew his hair long, wore leather pants, and roamed the halls of higher education selling weed. It was here that he met my mom. She was smart, pretty, socially conscious, and super needy. And when my dad talked about civil rights, she assumed he was a feminist. She immediately quit school and moved to Maine with him to live in the woods with no electricity and no running water. He had that effect on women.
They did the back to nature
thing for a while, but once my mom had me, my dad convinced her to move into the house that he grew up in. My grandparents were finally moving to a better neighborhood. And eventually my mom agreed: women like free houses. But once my dad was back on his block, he began to change—or rather change back.
He cut off his long hair and got a short perm, he became obsessed with his shoes, and he bought us an African drum coffee table, and one of those high-backed wicker chairs—you know, the ones you always see Huey Newton in. And he was invited by all his friends from high school to join the Esquire Club, an all-black men’s club. Within a year the man my mom had married had shed his crunchy granola skin, exposing a bona fide soul brother—and they teetered on the brink of divorce.
Meanwhile my little sister, who was born in the Rainier Valley, took after my dad. She seemed to pop right out of the womb and into a dance troupe. She found so much love and approval in the black community, you’d think she’d invented beatboxing (see Doug E. Fresh).
So while my mom was busy planning her escape, my sister and father were cohorts—completely integrated into the community we lived in. And then there was me—the honky. I’m not saying that to be provocative or put myself down.
I was a honky. I couldn’t dance. I couldn’t sing. I couldn’t double Dutch—the dueling jump ropes scared me. I didn’t have great stories that started with We was at . . .
and ended with . . . I told her not to make me take my earrings off!
Honestly, being a honky was A-OK with me. I wished my whole family were honkies. Big honkies! I wished we were the cover family for Honky Weekly. If I could have picked my family, they would have been honky professors that sat around in honky-assed tweed jackets reading the paper, stopping occasionally to say honky things about what was going on in China and how brilliant I was. They would talk in gentle honky voices and when they made a chicken they would THROW OUT THE GIZZARDS.
Instead I got my dad, sitting around playing dominoes with four large black men, who were all apparently my uncle, and who agreed that the only way to discuss affirmative action was—at the top of your lungs. They also thought kids were beer-fetchers crossed with remote controls and that there was something seriously wrong with my rhythm. I had a rhythm problem. This was not acceptable to my father, and so he began his crusade to make me down.
I remember it starting shortly after my sixth birthday. Without looking up from his dominoes game, he said to me, You need to stop tryin’ to hang out with grown folk and get out and play with the neighborhood kids.
The four learned black men he played with sat at the dining room table nodding in agreement, but I wasn’t thrilled with the idea. I didn’t really know the neighborhood kids, but they all hung out on the end of the block, being bigger than me and knowing each other really well. What I was a fan of was hanging out with my daddy. Mom drove a city bus and Dad took care of me and my little sister, Anora, during the day. Sometimes he would have a job doing construction, and we would go hammer nails and stuff until someone got hurt. But usually he was entertaining these four guys from the neighborhood: Reggie Dee, Eldridge, Big Lyman, and Delroy. And I just didn’t get why he wouldn’t want me there, too—I was fun.
My first birthday.
My dad put his dominoes in order as he continued, You know what you need to do?
I had a feeling he was gonna tell me.
You need to get out and make friends with the sisters.
You mean the girls out front of Latifa’s house?
My dad nodded.
Why?
I asked.
You may need those girls someday, and . . . your neighborhood is where you live.
What do I do?
Just go introduce yourself,
he said. Then, waving his hands around, he added, But not like you’re scared . . . like you’re doing them a favor.
I knew this had something to do with being cool, but I was scared and I didn’t see how I was doing anyone a favor.
Those girls out there would be lucky to have you hangin’ with them,
Reggie Dee said.
How come?
I asked. I liked Reggie.
Well . . . ,
Reggie said, thinking.
I’m smart,
I said. Pretty smart for six.
Yeah,
Reggie said apprehensively. But that’s not something you want to brag about.
Oh.
I didn’t get popularity at all. Then what do I have?
Well . . . ,
my dad said. You’re my daughter, for one. That’s one thing right there.
I waited for two,
but he just looked angry that I was still there.
I walked out of the house toward the corner, where I saw a group of kids. The clear leader of the group was a chubby girl we called Nay-Nay. She had her honey-colored thighs shoved into a pair of Day-Glo bicycle shorts two sizes too small, and her fat piggy toes peeked out of a pair of matching plastic jellies. Jellies were a plastic ballet-style shoe that was popular in the neighborhood, but my mom wouldn’t let me have them, because she said they were bad for my high arches.
Hi,
I said. I’m Mishna. I live up the street. Do you want to be my friend?
Awful—I didn’t say it as though I was doing them a favor. I said it like I was scared.
Nay-Nay looked me up and down and then said, Do you have any Barbies?
Sure,
I said. Then asked, What’s a Barbie?
Everyone looked at me like I was on crack, and Nay-Nay condescended, Barbie is a doll. Do you have any Barbies?
Yes!
I said defiantly. I do!
Well, get them . . . and you can hang out.
Nay-Nay said, putting her hand on her hip and blocking me from addressing anyone else in her group. But I stupidly stood there, not realizing that the conversation was over. I didn’t exist until I had that doll. Nay-Nay smacked her lips.
Oh,
I said nonchalantly. I’ll go get my Barbie.
And crept away.
I tore through the house past the dominoes game and into my room and began rifling through my dolls. I set them all on the bed in order to pick which of them, if any, was a Barbie doll. It was hard for me to tell what any brand-name toys were, because my mom didn’t let me watch commercial television. She said it rotted my brain, but I half suspected it was because not seeing commercials made it easier to be poor.
Making a quick and instinctual decision, I grabbed my favorite doll to bring back to the girls, which was Tommy, a stuffed turtle that someone had made for me. I tucked him carefully under my arm being very mindful of his head, because that’s where turtles are most vulnerable. And I hurried back upstairs—scurrying past my dad, who was in a shouting match with Lyman over whether or not he was cheating, and back out the front door. I didn’t know if I had the right doll, but I was carrying the best doll I owned, and I was pretty sure that everyone would be impressed with my hot-shit turtle.
The neighborhood kids were all standing in front of Latifa’s house fully into some sort of Barbie orgy. Hot, wild, Barbie-on-Barbie action, complete with sound effects like, uh, uh, uh.
And besides discovering lesbianism, I found that what I was holding could not have been further from a Barbie.
What’s that, whitey?
Nay-Nay asked, pointing to my doll.
Tommy,
I said. He’s a turtle.
You thought you could bring your broke-ass turtle down here to play Barbies?
I shrugged.
And with that, Nay-Nay began cackling in a way that quickly caught on with the rest of the group. I just stood on the corner holding Tommy the Turtle as five black girls holding plastic white women laughed at my stupidity.
I was desperate and argued, Mine’s a Barbie doll, too. . . . It’s just a different kind of Barbie!
To which Latifa, a girl a year older than me, exclaimed, That ain’t no Barbie doll! That’s something out of the Goodwill goodie box!
And when I didn’t walk away, Nay-Nay called me whitey again and gave me an embarrassing little shove in the direction of my house.
I marched back into the house and straight up to my mom, who had just gotten home from work. She was still in her work uniform, snacking on cheese and crackers at the kitchen counter, wearing her usual after-work expression of tired mixed with worry and coffee. She was deep in her cheddar and Ak-Mak, and looked surprised when I pounded the counter next to her and exclaimed, Mom, I need a Barbie!
What about Tommy?
she asked, gesturing in the direction of my turtle. I threw Tommy on the ground.
What about him?
I asked in a tone I hoped Dad didn’t overhear.
You know, now you’ll never make turtle mother of the year.
I don’t care about my dumb turtle anymore!
That got her attention. My mom turned to me and shook her head almost as if she knew this day had been coming and said in a calm and sincere voice, Honey, oppressed people of the world make Barbie so a big corporation can get rich. Now, is it really worth that kind of karma for a doll?
My mother, father, and baby me—looking skeptical.
I tried to respond. Um,
I said. Well . . .
But I knew I couldn’t argue with karma and oppressed people in the Philippines.
A few days later, I walked out of the front door as my dad was putting the finishing touches on a tire swing in the front yard. What’s that?
I asked.
He finished his knot and said, Tire swing. I thought it would bring some other kids over here to play with you.
He added, "You’ll see. This’ll be the spot."
You think this will help me make friends?
I asked.
Hells yeah,
my dad said. And then pointing to the swing, asked, Who wouldn’t want to be on that swing?
I guessed me was the answer, because that swing scared me. But my dad really knew about this stuff. So even though that swing just looked like something that was too high off the ground and not really clean clean, I knew its secret would reveal itself. And, sure enough, before my dad was done testing out his knot, Latifa had come over.
So,
I said, looking awkwardly at Latifa. You wanna go first?
Okay,
she said, and got on the swing. She swung for a little bit and then helped hoist me up and pushed for a while. And I was surprised to find that hanging out with Latifa when she was away from Nay-Nay was pretty nice. I also learned that her favorite word was daaang! She started every sentence with it. Daaang, you sure have some nappy hair.
Or, Daaang, why your parents dress you like a boy?
Or, Daaang, you don’t got no booty at all!
Latifa and I spent an afternoon on the swing. I even tried throwing dang around a couple times, saying, Dang, I like swinging—dang.
Or Dang, I’m swinging fast—dang.
And when it started to get dark, I climbed into the house exhausted from fun.
But the next day, Latifa came back with Jason, Nay-Nay, Dorina, and three new kids. They immediately made it clear my turn
was never again, and they found every way possible to turn a swing into a weapon. First they invented swing bombing
where one person hurls the swing at a friend, causing them to bruise or fall over. And then they changed the game to twisting the rope up as tight as possible, and everybody piling on the swing and releasing it to let it spin. They spun at a nauseating speed while simultaneously trying to throw each other off onto the sidewalk. Then they would laugh and wipe their wounds and get back on to go another round. Nay-Nay pushed Jason so hard that with the added centrifugal force of the swing, he cleared the parking strip and landed in the street. Dang!
he said. I just got my hair cut!
Then he grabbed her by her shirt and tackled her to the ground. I stared as Jason and Nay-Nay took turns smushing each other’s head into the parking strip. That is, until Jason looked up at me and said plainly, What are you looking at, whitey?
And I answered his question by running into the house.
That was when Anora, my three-year-old sister, tottered out the front door, consumed with excitement, and began crawling down the front steps feetfirst as fast as she could. She was wearing a striped T-shirt and her curly dark hair was pulled in a ponytail over her head like Pebbles from The Flinstones. And, having cleared the stairs, she instinctively moved to the center of the action like a tank. Her blue eyes were ecstatic. I watched her from the dining room window, afraid that she would get hurt or banished or made fun of. But she just stood next to Dorina clapping her hands together, laughing, Again! Go again!
In fact, she was being so adorable that Latifa walked over to her from the opposite side of the swing to try to help her up onto the swing. But Anora just screamed and hit Latifa’s arm. And rather than getting angry, Latifa begged Anora to let her pick her up. And watching the scene in front of me I couldn’t figure out how Anora was a sister and I wasn’t, but she was my sister. And then Mom got home.
Her expression was already frustrated as she pulled her car up to a gang of rowdy kids playing king of the mountain on my tire swing. And as she parked, her face went from frustrated to frightening. She got out of the car, glared at the kids, and silently picked up my little sister as she marched into the house. She set my sister down in the dining room before she walked up to Dad.
John, what’s going on outside?
she asked.
Oh . . . that’s Mishna’s tire swing,
he replied, not looking up from his paper.
How is it Mishna’s?
Well, damn,
Dad said. It’s not my fault that she’s up in here!
John, those kids have taken over our front yard!
Mom was usually afraid of Dad, but the fact that he was still reading emboldened her. Is that your idea of helping Mishna?
Listen,
Dad said, the girl needs to learn how to fight for her shit.
There are six of them,
Mom said. And they are twice as big as her.
Dad looked up from the paper finally—to make a point—and said, Yeah . . . that’s how life is.
And with that, Mom walked out the door, grabbed a saw from the garage, marched through the gang of kids, and cut down the tire swing. I guess she didn’t care about popularity as much as Dad did.
This wasn’t bad news to me. It meant the next day I got to stay in the house with my daddy, which was all I had wanted to do in the first place. And while Dad and his main crew sat and played dominoes, I tried to make myself as small and fly-on-the-wallish as possible, while still pretending like I was one of them. When beers were passed around, I shook my head as though I were declining their invitation. When they picked their dominoes, I was always, Just sitting this one out.
And when they yelled about football or politics, I scratched my chin as though they had a good point, but was still forming my opinion. There was also a lot of yelling at Dad for cheating.
Everyone knew Dad cheated whenever he could. He was a cheating machine—cheating at everything from cards to Candyland. And Eldridge, a huge caramel-colored man from Texas, was the loudest in the group—which made it his job to catch Dad cheating. That day he decided that the best way to get my dad to play an honest game was to teach me how to play dominoes. As he said, No self-respecting father would cheat in front of his own daughter. So we just got to educate you!
So as the day went on, Eldridge showed me how he was playing, and how the points were counted. And when he wasn’t teaching me, he watched Dad like a