Book Review of "The Wedding" by Dorothy West

The Exoteric Book Club had a great discussion about "The Wedding" by Dorothy West. Scholar, member of the Book Club, referred to an enlightening piece of information that Dorothy West, the author, provided the reader about the group of wealthy, light skin, African Americans who owned and vacationed in summer homes on Martha’s Vineyard in the 1940’s, 1950’s, and 1960’s, the subject of this book. These bourgeois, superior, higher echelon, light skin, Black people were descendants of white men having sex not consensual with those mothers, grandmothers, and great grandmothers of those who, because of their light skin color, now feel they have arrived. To marry a White man was disdaining to them, as was marriage to a dark skin Black man. Although, a man’s pedigree (doctor or lawyer) was a bonafide exception to this ilk. This group mostly married each other to maintain the light skin color. In the book, the ideology that “skin color was the core of character” was the underline cause for self-hatred, bigotry’s most monstrous crime against the Black man. It stripped the Black man of personal dignity. The children we see today with light skin color are the result of consensual sex, and the mothers and off springs do not share the same light skin color philosophy. The ladies rated the book 3.22 on a 5 point rating scale.