Award-winning author Rebecca Carroll understood the allure of storytelling very early in life. Today, she has an extensive resume as a journalist, cultural critic, WNYC radio producer, and podcast host. She’s written several critically acclaimed books on race and racial identity in America. Her latest, Surviving the White Gaze, is a powerful memoir about her experience growing up as the sole Black child in an all-white community. She speaks to us about the art of crafting a memoir, the moment she first heard the term ‘white gaze’ from Toni Morrison herself, and her family members’ reactions to the book. Plus, how writing the memoir helped to release painful memories from her body and contributed to her overall wellness.
Award-winning author Rebecca Carroll understood the allure of storytelling very early in life. Today, she has an extensive resume as a journalist, cultural critic, WNYC radio producer, and podcast host. She’s written several critically acclaimed books on race and racial identity in America. Her latest, Surviving the White Gaze, is a powerful memoir about her experience growing up as the sole Black child in an all-white community. She speaks to us about the art of crafting a memoir, the moment she first heard the term ‘white gaze’ from Toni Morrison herself, and her family members’ reactions to the book. Plus, how writing the memoir helped to release painful memories from her body and contributed to her overall wellness.
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Heather Reisman:
Hi, I’m Heather Reisman, and this is Well Said, a podcast on the art and science of living well. This podcast is brought to you by Indigo.
Today’s episode is hosted by Shivani Persad, a wonderfully curious journalist and a fellow booklover.
Shivani Persad:
For a lot of people, 2020 was the year that made them pay attention to issues around racial injustice—maybe for the first time. Our guest today has spent her life navigating issues around race.
Rebecca Carroll:
This is what I have been internalizing, trying to peel off my body, trying to navigate, trying to respond to, arguing with in my head. I didn’t have words for it. And then suddenly there were the words for it. It was the white gaze, which is the default of beauty, of values, of talent, of skill. And I suddenly just needed to find a way out.
Shivani Persad:
That’s Rebecca Carroll. Rebecca is a writer, journalist, and radio producer. She has written for The New York Times, L.A. Times, The Atlantic, and The Cut, to name a few. She’s also the host of her own podcast, Come Through with Rebecca Carroll: 15 essential conversations about race in a pivotal year for America. Rebecca has written several critically acclaimed books about race and racial identity in America. Her latest, Surviving the White Gaze, is a powerful and intimate memoir. She tells the story of her own experiences growing up as the sole Black child in an all-white community. And the racism, role models, and resilience that helped shaped the woman she is today.
We’re delighted to welcome Rebecca to the show.
Shivani Persad:
So, what drew you to writing in the first place?
Rebecca Carroll:
You know, I think I drew myself to it. And I say that not to make me seem like a baby genius or something. But I did see and understand the allure of storytelling very early on. I wrote stories, and plays—bad ones, very, very bad ones. The sort of ongoing joke with my husband and I is when I told him that the first play I wrote was about a woman just dusted all day—dusted bookshelves and dusted little corners of her apartment. She just dusted. But just I understood the allure of storytelling and how it could help me figure things out. And of course you’ve read the book, and you know that that first essay I wrote at six-years-old—filled with all the drama that I was. Little Rebecca was full of drama.
So I don’t know, I feel like, I’ve said this recently, which is that I’ve always written, and I think that I’ve written across mediums, and I’ve been satisfied with my evolution as a writer. But this book, it is the first time that I feel solidly like a writer. Because writing a memoir is not just journal entries, or dispatches, or op-ed pieces stuck together, or even essays—although people do write memoirs as collections of essays. But when I realized I was ready to write it, and I worked on the proposal exceedingly hard, and we went out with it and it got an incredible response and there was a bidding war, and it was super-exciting, and then I sat down to write it and I was like, “I have no idea what I’m doing.” None.
And it was really bizarre. I wasn’t prepared for it to not just come out. You know, because I decided that I was ready, that didn’t quite line up with how do you write a memoir. What is the craft of writing a memoir? So I needed to step back for a minute and think about how to do that. Because even as a journalist, or a cultural critic, or a screenwriter, they all flex different muscles. And I wrote a very, very shitty first draft. And I had a wonderful editor, Christine Pride. And we sort of talked about what the narrative arc might be. But, most importantly, only stories of anecdotes that responded directly to surviving the white gaze.
Shivani Persad:
Do you think it was difficult for you to sit down and really do it because you had spent so much of your career writing about other people?
Rebecca Carroll:
I think that actually is what helped me and kind of freed me. Which is that I spent a lot of time amplifying other voices, other Black voices, which was critically important to me as an artist but also as a person in finding community in those stories and in those voices. You know, my first book was a collection of interviews with Black women writers. Right? And now we’re sort of having this renaissance with Black women writers, which is amazing, and Black artists. But I chose that particular journey because I wanted to hear from Black women writers, as just I was in my early 20s. Like, “How do you do this? What is this about? What does it feel like?” And then talking with Black men writers, and then Black girls. And I sort of created this literary family of Blackness, and that I think has really buoyed me and really lifted me in terms of my own writing.
Shivani Persad:
And it’s called, Surviving the White Gaze, so I want to dig deeper into that. Let’s talk about the white gaze. What does the concept of the white gaze mean to you?
Rebecca Carroll:
So again, you know, my North Star, Toni Morrison, she was on the Charlie Rose show, which is a TV show—now no longer, for all sorts of reasons that we don’t have to get into at the moment. But I was a producer, and I was in the sound booth recording booth, and she started talking to Charlie about the white gaze. And this was, you know, 20 years ago.
And I was like, “Wait a minute. That’s it. That’s it. That is what I have been internalizing, trying to peel off my body, trying to navigate, trying to respond to, arguing with in my head. I didn’t have words for it. And then suddenly there were the words for it. It was the white gaze, which is the default of beauty, of values, of talent, of skill. And I suddenly just needed to find a way out. I needed to find a way out from under the gaze.
And that was certainly much harder than I anticipated. And also it’s like when you leave a relationship and you’re over it; there’s nothing left. So like even when you are still kind of grieving that relationship or sad about it passing, there’s a feeling—at least there’s a feeling. But when I decided to sort of leave the white gaze, even the kind of insecurity that it fostered, even the kind of second-guessing and gaslighting that it sparked, that was gone. And I kind of missed it, in a way that I didn’t anticipate, because of that kind of knee jerk. It’s like, “If I get white validation, yes!” Right? But when I realized I didn’t need it and that I could give validation to myself and seek it out among other Black folks and chosen family, it took a while to really trust that. And it was a real excavation—I mean, memoir writing is an excavation anyway—but certainly in deciding that I was going to, you know, like leaving a cult. Right? It’s like, “I’m done with that. I’m just done with that.” So it was a journey, as the kids say (laughs).
Shivani Persad:
How did the process of writing this book shape your perception of your childhood?
Rebecca Carroll:
I’ve been thinking and journaling about my life and my childhood throughout my life. And when I became a mother and started really thinking about how I wanted to parent, I reflected on what my childhood was and what it wasn’t. And you know, it was really a joy to write that first chapter, because that is what the first six years of my life really was. It was this kind of beautiful, idyllic bubble of nature, and play, and high tea, and cookies, and all the rest. My mom was amazing; she was amazing, and is amazing.
But after that, things really kind of, you know, they kind of broke. And I had to kind of figure out what parts of that early idyllic childhood I wanted to bring into my own parenting. Because there’s something about it that is so delusional (laughs). You know? It’s so just unreal. You know, I love the idea of play but not to the point where there’s no sort of interaction with reality. Right? So what I pulled from those early years from my childhood was mostly creativity—mostly really valuing art and making things—and bringing that to my own son. But later on, as you know, it got much more complicated.
Shivani Persad:
Let’s talk about the mother-daughter relationships—with your adoptive mother Laurette and your birth mother Tess. How have these relationships shaped you as a mother?
Rebecca Carroll:
So, they’re dichotomous. Right? Like they’re literally polar-opposite mothers. And that again, like the sort of idyllic delusional childhood, is like, how much of that, you know? Tess, for all of her flaws, was very much about hard work. She was very much about, like I learned how to do chores. Like I didn’t have chores in my adoptive family. I had to learn how to do dishes when I was at her house. Taking care of my brothers. She had a work ethic, she was a feminist, and she had a particular way of being. Whereas my mom was really just like, “Let’s make cookies, and make Valentines, and have things be beautiful, and just really love each other.”
And so I would say that I’ve drawn from both. Like I believe that my son should go to college. I believe that he should do his dishes. But I also believe that he should feel absolutely unconditionally loved. That he should feel like I’m not ever going to judge him. I’m never going to judge him. And that’s really freeing. I think that’s one of the things—my mom’s lack of judgment—is what saved me from my birth mother’s full-on judgment. And I think that my mom really saved me from becoming super-cynical and really, really resentful.
Shivani Persad:
What has the reaction been by your family and friends that you wrote about?
Rebecca Carroll:
My mom is the only one who has read it through, twice. And she is sort of doing what she has always done. I mean, I keep saying to my squad and my girls, like the response of each parent, respectively, I could have pretty much written it. Like the brand is very strong in terms of their characters and the ways in which they have responded.
So my birth mother has written, not one, not two, but three emails to my publisher—disgruntled, yes.
My father has read the parts that are written about him and doesn’t particularly care for the way in which I have depicted him.
And my mom is sort of shouldering everybody’s response and trying to get it, to understand it, without taking personal offence to the way I talk about her parenting. And you know, she’s really struggling. And I kind of decided—and this speaks to what we were saying earlier—it’s like I just kind of decided, “You know what? I can let that be.” I’m happy to just do that. Because at this point, it doesn’t make sense to sort of put that toll on her when she, I believe, fully has tried as hard as she can to understand.
My sister has been amazing. And we—as you know, having read the book—we have struggled to come back to each other. But I was really, really determined to have her feel good about the way that I wrote about her own very harrowing experience. And she has been extremely supportive of the book.
But my brother not so much—doesn’t want to have anything to do with it, feels very protective of our parents.
So it’s, yes, it’s been a mixed bag.
Shivani Persad:
You’ve written about drawing inspiration and guidance from the words of Toni Morrison and her approach to living better even in oppressive spaces. Has writing Surviving the White Gaze allowed you to continue on your own journey towards living better? And the reason I ask is because this is a podcast about living well.
Rebecca Carroll:
Absolutely. And it’s a fantastic question. And it’s a question that makes sense in this particular moment in my life. Right? Which is that I had to arrive at a place where I felt free. And then, while I was writing it, I realized that these vivid, sometimes excruciatingly painful memories were doing more damage in my body and that I needed to allow them to live somewhere else. And that they are living elsewhere now, they’re free to roam. They’re no longer wreaking havoc on my actual wellness. Right? But it took a long time. You know, we hold onto, we’re a very nostalgic race of people. Human beings are nostalgic; we love to hold onto memories. And I have an extremely vivid memory, and wrote in journals, and have vivid dreams, and have photographs and letters and those kinds of things. But I think the writing of Surviving the White Gaze has made me more well than I’ve ever felt, actually, in my life.
It’s just a marker. It’s a milestone. It’s a moment. It’s a crowning moment for me, where I was able to, as I feel and see it, honour my experience and my truth, and write it well, and do it in service of young Black women, transracial adoptees, Black folks, and the power of ancestors and Blackness—and knowing that I am, at the end of the day, a very good friend, a very good partner, a very good mother.
And all of those things, you know, that’s sort of why it stops where it stops. Because it’s not really about what’s happened in the past 15 years for me, but the past 15 years are what have allowed me to write the book.
Shivani Persad:
In the memoir, you talk about both literary and personal role models who had a profound effect on you. Can you tell us your thoughts on the importance of role models, particularly for young, marginalized people?
Rebecca Carroll:
Yes. I think role modelling is really hard. And I think that because there’s no one way to do it. Right? You know, here’s one way; it’s not the way but it’s one way. And so I think to be an effective role model, you almost sort of need to be both intentional and not so much know how much of an impact you’re having. Right? Because you have to really live who you are, without being self-conscious about it. Not that I won’t. I’m going to mess it up. I’m going to mess up parenting, here and there along the way, for sure.
But I think for folks looking for role models, it’s really about not just who you can identify with, not just people who look like you, but people who are making things, using language, thinking about other people. And that, I think, when you’re able to find a role model, you’re also able to start really establishing a value system. It doesn’t have to reflect exactly. Like my professor at the first university where I was at had a profound effect on me. He was an extraordinary teacher. He was the first Black male role model I had. But he was not unproblematic, right?
But what I took from that is, you know, the way that he talked about language and writing, and the way that he talked about Black literature and how important it was for me to keep that in mind as I was writing my own work. That I could be part of this canon of profoundly talented Black writers, that was like poosh. I just had not thought of it that way before. So I think role models can offer different things. It doesn’t have to be all in one.
Shivani Persad:
What do you hope Surviving the White Gaze leaves with people?
Rebecca Carroll:
I hope it leaves people with a sense that I didn’t just survive, I became. And that it was about, and it is about, resilience but it’s also about interrogation. And it’s about not being afraid to push deeper and try to find a new way to experience the communities that we live in, and the communities that we don’t live in. But that ultimately, you know, the best thing that we do, as a species, is we engage with each other and we rebuild, and we rebuild, and we rebuild. And that for me is what this book really does. Which is that at every sort of step of the way, either an ancestor dropped a Black person down in to help me along, or a challenge of some sort where I had to keep rebuilding. And you know, I think, without sounding cliché, it is a story about resilience and it’s a story about becoming.
[music]
Shivani Persad:
At the end of every episode, we like to ask our guest a few fun questions. Rebecca, is there a book that changed your life?
Rebecca Carroll:
Oh, The Bluest Eye, without question. Without question. It felt like the sky cracked open. And not just because of the story—which speaks so directly to the white gaze—but because it’s incredibly written. It’s beautiful literature. And this was the thing about discovering Black literature, for me it was like pages and pages—and I wrote about this in the book—these rich, beautiful stories, this language. You’d get through the entire book and not have seen or heard from a white person. And that blew my mind. That blew my mind. So for sure it was The Bluest Eye.
Shivani Persad:
What are you reading right now?
Rebecca Carroll:
Bookwise, I finished The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr., which is beyond extraordinary and, you know, disclaimer, he’s a friend. But it’s also just such a beautiful book that I want to mention it and plug it.
I did read and review, recently, The Chiffon Trenches by André Leon Talley, which I had a lot of feelings about, and which I think I bring up also because it speaks very much to the white gaze.
Shivani Persad:
What brings you joy?
Rebecca Carroll:
Making the perfect bacon-egg-and-cheese for my son.
Shivani Persad:
Ohh.
Rebecca Carroll:
That brings me joy. You know? And I am very connected to art, and I love seeing this, again, a kind of renaissance—isn’t quite the right word. But there’s a lot of Black art happening right now in film, in fine-art and gallery work at museums, and books. And that brings me a lot of joy.
Shivani Persad:
My very last question. What does purposeful living mean to you?
Rebecca Carroll:
I guess you sort of have to decide what the prize is and keep your eye on it. Right? You know, what is it that matters to you? What kind of success? What feels good? What can you live with? What do you live with? It’s so different for me now, as a parent, than before when I just wanted to keep writing, creating, working, building, evolving. And then when I had my son, the purpose is to do all of that with integrity.
And you know, one thing that is interesting and may be a silver lining—though I hate that term “silver lining”—of the pandemic is we live in a small two-bedroom garden apartment in Brooklyn, New York. My child is spending a year of his teenage life holed up in a two-bedroom Brooklyn apartment with his parents and has been so gracious about it. But because of the size of the apartment, he can’t help but hear me, and us, do what we do every day. Which is kind of cool. Like for him to be able to hear me negotiating a deal on the phone or over a Zoom, or to hear his dad teaching, I feel like that, we have been reminded of what our purpose is. And it’s become acutely important to stay on that purposeful path.
Shivani Persad:
That’s awesome. Well, it has truly been such a pleasure. I am so grateful to have read the book. But also just to have spoken to you is such a privilege. And this was a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Rebecca Carroll:
Thank you for having me. Your questions were fantastic. And that, I think, is another thing, that I just want to leave with, is just that curiosity is so, so important to purpose and to finding out what matters to you. So thank you for your beautiful questions.
[music]
Shivani Persad:
Thanks for tuning in to our conversation with Rebecca Carroll. For more ideas to help you live well, including the book featured in this episode, Surviving the White Gaze, visit indigo.ca/podcast. If you liked this episode, please leave us a rating on Apple Podcasts. You can follow us wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Well Said was produced for Indigo Inc. by Vocal Fry Studios. I’m Shivani Persad, and we’ll be back next week with a new episode of Well Said.