When I Was White Audiobook By Sarah Valentine cover art

When I Was White

A Memoir

Preview
Try for $0.00
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

When I Was White

By: Sarah Valentine
Narrated by: Danielle Deadwyler
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $14.99

Buy for $14.99

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use, License, and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

The stunning and provocative coming-of-age memoir about Sarah Valentine's childhood as a White girl in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, and her discovery that her father was a Black man.

At the age of 27, Sarah Valentine discovered that she was not, in fact, the White girl she had always believed herself to be. She learned the truth of her paternity: that her father was a Black man. And she learned the truth about her own identity: mixed race.

And so Sarah began the difficult and absorbing journey of changing her identity from White to Black. In this memoir, Sarah details the story of the discovery of her identity, how she overcame depression to come to terms with this identity, and, perhaps most importantly, asks: why? Her entire family and community had conspired to maintain her White identity. The supreme discomfort her White family and community felt about addressing issues of race - her race - is a microcosm of race relationships in America.

A Black woman who lived her formative years identifying as White, Sarah's story is a kind of Rachel Dolezal in reverse, though her "passing" was less intentional than conspiracy. This memoir is an examination of the cost of being Black in America, and how one woman threw off the racial identity she'd grown up with, in order to embrace a new one.

©2019 Sarah Valentine (P)2019 Macmillan Audio
Racism & Discrimination Social Sciences Thought-Provoking
adbl_web_global_use_to_activate_T1_webcro805_stickypopup
All stars
Most relevant  
I was eager to read this story because the subject interested me. But now I am struggling to finish this book.
The narrator is terrible. She strings the sentences together and leaves no pauses where there should be one, adds pauses where there should NOT be one and makes a lot of it hard to follow.
The author beats the subject to death, over and over. I am trying to grasp her struggle and I have no doubt it was hard for her to learn that she had an African American father, but the book is just too long.

Too long and repetitive

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Valentine offers her story in a captivating and delightful way that snares readers to want more. Her life, like most of ours, is filled with twist and turns she lays out in a relatable fashion. The only draw back is I was expect a better ending. Seems like she set it up for a future sequel.

Enjoyable

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Loved it! Simply amazing. Very well written. Thank you for sharing your truth. I pray all of your questions about your life have been answered.

Enjoyed reading about your life journey.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I honestly loved this book. Even the narrator was great. I think the only odd thing is the random length of the chapters.

Great book!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

More than a story about self identity or finding one's self in the midst of everyone else's story or assumptions, Sarah dug deep with her story to write this master piece. The writing of her story made be cling to every word. It's one thing to tell a story, but its another to write and hope the reader can follow along. The flow of her story, the description of feelings...all left on the "page". of course I have more questions but the book isn't a cliffhanger. Shout out to the narrator as well, amazing job.

Completely Amazing

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

With my too being biracial (blk/wht), ethnically ambiguous, with a mother that raised me to tell "half truths" when asked my ethnicity, along with family that didn't hold their tongue w/regards to their bigotry/bias towards blacks as well as much of those I went to school with, also with having white half siblings that looked nothing like me, in addition to not knowing my father (in my case mine passed away shortly after my birth) and even had my own 'coming out' of sorts (much to the chagrin of some family members)...there were many relatable parts in her book. W/that being said, I wholeheartedly understand why she didn't know/ask until her twenties and it pains me to see the backlash she has experienced from the naysayers that can't remotely begin to relate let alone understand her not knowing. Anyway...my review.
Again, it was relatable in ways and those are the parts that really kept my attention. However, too much detail was given when not relevant to anything. Unfortunately, that was frequent. The narrator...well, she made it difficult to stay focused with her monotone reading, especially with some of her pronunciation of words.

Not as good as interesting as I'd anticipated...

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I highly recommend this book especially at this time. Sarah’s voice should not be ignored. Her brutal honesty makes teaches us about ourselves.

Amazing perspective

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.