ARA Review by Bona10nder of Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream

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Bona10nder
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ARA Review by Bona10nder of Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream

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[Following is an OnlineBookClub.org ARA Review of the book, Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream.]
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2 out of 5 stars
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Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream by Dr. Frank L. Douglas is an important autobiography. The author's unique perspective alone makes it so. Frank Douglas was a hard-working and intellectually gifted young man who grew up in poverty in British Guiana before coming to America on a Fulbright scholarship. His arrival coincides with the civil rights struggles of the early 1960s. As a Black man he will come face to face with the many contradictory forces at work in America. Led by a strong moral compass and a unique sense of self he will make good on America's promise as a land of opportunity and rise to the top of his profession.

Overload

This doesn't mean it was easy to read. His writing style is tedious by any measure.

He served as director of the Youth for Christ Rallies "at the tender age of 19." Nineteen is not a tender age; in every known culture nineteen is adulthood. Five is tender. This seems petty but bear with me.

During his initial flight to America he reflects on his life. It's a handy vehicle to move things along except he doesn't use it economically. He leads us using breadcrumbs but his style is as though breadcrumbs are as plentiful as pebbles, and at times, equally as inedible:

Lunch was typical curry and rice dish with soda. I ate without giving much thought to the meal …

He doesn't care about the curry, why should we have to read about it? Next up is the airplane bathroom:

I motioned to the stewardess and asked if I could use the toilet. She pointed to the rear of the airplane. Three other passengers were ahead of me waiting to use the toilet … When I returned to my seat, after voiding my full bladder, I continued to reflect …

Ah swell, full bladder voided? Check.

Who cares? I found it banal and bizarre that he would spend time itemizing such trivial moments in an otherwise unforgettable life. Granted this is an autobiography and not a memoir, but there are limits to the chronological telling of one's life. He overwrites with alarming frequency. Other examples:

"I have a list to which I would like to refer."

And:

"My observation is that you are … undergoing a personal struggle … if you would like, I can call around and see if I can get you interviews at some graduate schools. Are you interested in this?"
I said, "You are correct. I am a little unsure of my future life steps. I would really appreciate it, if you were to call the graduate schools."


And:

The second recommendation was for me to go to Stanford University and study Decision Analysis and return to work for [Dr. Tribus]. I thanked Dr. Tribus and told him that I would think about it. I returned to Mr. Strella and told him that Dr. Tribus had offered the two possibilities and that I wanted to think about it.

Overload! Too much of this and frustration causes the reader to skim for pertinent content.

The middle chapters sag accordingly, though not from trips to the toilet but from the bulk of so many opportunities afforded him by Dr. A from the division of Clinical B at University C. Posts and positions and research options he does not take are afforded almost the same weight as the ones he accepts. He gives us so many physician and professor family names once and then never mentions them again.

The point of all the name-dropping becomes clearer when the author is working in Big Pharma and is up for a promotion. The company CEO asks him why he never mentioned to anyone that he did research alongside a couple of Nobel laureates, among others. He tells us that one of his personal shortcomings is in failing to make use of his mentors in this manner due to "a need to demonstrate that I had worked hard and had earned my positions and they were not given to me because of my relationships with eminent leaders."

I wondered if his PhD thesis was similarly laden with words when a professor substantially edits it, often removing "several paragraphs that I thought necessary to explain what I thought we had found." We learn that the professor did so with other motives in mind, but if his thesis was anything like his autobiography, I have to believe that he also took the opportunity to trim the fat.

To this end, the Prologue and the first three chapters could have been condensed into one chapter, a quarter of the length, while retaining the information crucial to understanding his youth. For me, the book truly begins when that long airplane ride ends and he reaches Lehigh University.

Racism

Everybody is a little bit racist, including the author. The decision to propose marriage to his girl because he didn't want to return to Guiana with a foreign wife has a racist element to it, but he grew up under the yoke of colonialism. The British were everywhere, sometimes armed to the teeth. At one point he and his family live in a home with as many as five other families; it is large, he tells us, because it was likely the former home of a slave owner.

He arrives in America as a young man of almost unbelievable naivete, with an unblemished moral compass. He expresses genuine amazement that people who considered themselves Christians would engage in anything remotely sexual before marriage. His prudishness is on full display one night when he shuts down a homecoming party because some couples were slow-dancing and others were making out.

His recollection of watching sitcoms and thinking they were short movies is quaint and endearing, as is his sleeping on both bed sheets with the blanket over him. Learning that students had been out picking up some "pigs" his response reveals an insightful young man: "If they consider those girls Pigs, why don't they also see themselves as Pigs?"

Yet in America the racism and hypocrisy that have been the functional reality underneath the robust veneer of all of us being "equal" greet him early and often, leaving him angry and confused. Being made a target of racial profiling by police lands him in jail (well, sort of), white dinner guests assume he's an African prince, and crosses burn on campus.

Such experiences will inevitably change a person. In the midst of the March on Washington and the assassination of Medgar Evers, he learns that Blacks are prohibited from going into some churches:

This was the country whose missionaries went to Guyana and preached that we were equal before God and that confessing Christ as Savior guaranteed one a place in heaven.

It is a rare moment in his writing where you can feel the angry undertow, and one can only imagine the deep bitterness of realizing that you had been duped. His negative experiences are so many and so often that he finds it impossible to reconcile his religious upbringing with the open prejudice of Christians in America. In response, he renounces his own religiosity.

Defining Moments

In such decisions come the only chances of getting to know the author as a person. For instance, despite being Black in a country run by Whites in a time when racism and discrimination were not subtle, the author's diligence earns him many opportunities (although we'll never know how many were denied him due to race). At one point, an advisor tells him he could probably be awarded a Rhodes Scholarship if he applies as a student from the Caribbean, since the competition will be weaker. Not wanting a hand-out and not wanting to deny some other deserving student, he declines even to apply.

On graduating from medical school he learns that he has been selected as the student who improved the most over the four years. It is an honor he rejects, saying, "I could not and would not accept it because it would suggest to others that I was in agreement that my performance was poor in my first two years."

About a third of the way into the book, the author goes to New York Hospital to see the dean of minority students. There, he drops a bomb on us:

Dr. Curtis mentioned all the barriers (I faced): I was married. I had two young children.

Two? When did he have one? We know that he is married early on, but no mention of ever having any children until that moment. In a way, the nature of this surprise defines the book. Rarely does Douglas discuss his personal life. In fact, none of his family is recorded saying a word until the very end. Put another way, this book is less about Frank the man and much more about his professional achievements. On occasion the author flirts with his emotions but is quick to abandon them in favor of shop talk.

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

This man's life story is reaffirming for those of us in America who still want to believe in this country as the land of opportunity for all, regardless of race or creed or resources. On this alone it earns its stars.

However, while style is ultimately subjective, in good writing there are elements of style that approach the level of universal law. Among them is William Strunk's order to omit needless words. The author prides himself on having chosen the road less-traveled, an instinct that serves him well in seemingly every endeavor except here, where a skilled editor would have made a huge difference.

***
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