Shame on Me: An Anatomy of Race and Belonging

by Tessa McWatt

‘What are you?’

Tessa McWatt knows first-hand that the answer to this question, often asked of people of colour by white people, is always more complicated than it seems. Is the answer English, Scottish, British, Caribbean, Portuguese, Indian, Amerindian, French, African, Chinese, Canadian? Like most families, hers is steeped in myth and the anecdotes of grandparents and parents who recount their histories through the lens of desire, aspiration, loss, and shame.

In Shame On Me she unspools all the interwoven strands of her multicoloured inheritance, and knits them back together using additional fibres from literature and history to strengthen the weave of her refabricated tale. She dismantles her own body and examines it piece by piece to build a devastating and incisively subtle analysis of the race debate as it now stands, in this stunningly written exploration of who and what we truly are.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Race, Canada, Essays, Anti Racist, Biography

272 pages, Hardcover

First published August 6, 2019

About the author

Guyanese-born Canadian writer Tessa McWatt is the author of six novels and two books for young people. Her fiction has been nominated for the Governor General’s Award, the City of Toronto Book Awards, and the OCM Bocas Prize. She is one of the winners of the Eccles British Library Award 2018, for her memoir: Shame on Me: An Anatomy of Race and Belonging. She is also a librettist, and works on interdisciplinary projects and community-based life writing through CityLife: Stories Against Loneliness. She teaches Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.75) “What are you?” This is the question that has haunted McWatt ever since she was eight years old. When her third-grade teacher asked the class if they knew what “Negro” meant, one boy pointed to her. “Oh, no, not Tessa,” the teacher replied, following up with a question: “What are you, Tessa?” But it has always been hard to put her mixed-race background into one word. Her family moved from Guyana to Canada and she has since settled in England, where she is a professor of creative writing; her ancestry is somewhat uncertain but may include Chinese, Indian, indigenous South American, Portuguese, French/Jewish, African, and Scottish.

The book opens with the startling scene of her grandmother, a young Chinese woman brought over to work the sugarcane fields of British Guiana, being raped by her own uncle. “To strangers, even friends—on some days also to myself—I am images of violence and oppression. I am the language of shame and destitution, of slavery and indenture, of rape and murder. I am images of power and privilege, of denial and shades of skin, shapes of faces,” McWatt writes.

Her investigation of the meaning of race takes the form of an academic paper, Hypothesis–Experiment–Analysis–Findings, and within the long third section she goes part by part through the bodily features that have most often been used as markers of racial identity, including the nose, eyes, hair and buttocks. She dives into family history but also into wider historical movements, literature and science to understand her hybrid self. It’s an inventive and sensitive work reminiscent of The Color of Water by James McBride. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading (or feels they should try) interrogations of race.

A favorite line:

“as I try to square my politics with my privilege, it seems that my only true inheritance is that I am always running somewhere else.”


Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

I won a signed proof copy in a Twitter giveaway.

[Evoli · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 ☆
Probably a weird comment buttt I think this memoir should be consumed in form of a physical copy and not somewhere online, as it is, in my opinion, detrimental to the reading experience...
It is kind of hard to explain, however, I think that, had I read it as a physical copy, my rating would have been a 4 star.
While I did find the story and memoir gripping, especially in the beginning, it became slightly monotonous and I struggled to find the motivation to pick it up again once temporarily put aside.
All in all, it is definitely a short read page wise buttt not at all a short read content/reading speed wise (not even because it's gross or anything like that, since it's literally not gross at all, just very tedious and challenging mentally to get through and absorb the sentences, in a way). It took me several tries to understand what she was saying, although the sentences were clear and the approach was not fragmentary (sure, it included analepses buttt even these came across as structured/carefully crafted insertions within the main narrative).

[Nami · Rating 4 out of 5]

Structured like a science experiment, moving from hypothesis through to body (labelled under literal body parts) and findings, Tessa McWatt creates a piece of incredibly valuable literature on race that leaves no dark corners. It’s evident through her writing that she’s not afraid of depth. Not in her heart shattering childhood anecdotes, to stories of her ancestors - both real and imagined - to her current experiences as an interracial woman. And yet she is careful to not place herself at the centre of this narrative on race, acknowledging many others who have suffered, and continue to do so.

This book sparked an interest in me in my own history that I hadn’t considered before, taking the question “who am I?” beyond just myself. Who lives in the shape of my lips? The shade of my skin? To say no man is an island but then to feel it, that is a moving experience.

McWatt is what I define a solid author to be in their writing; educated, emotional, and undeniably talented.

[Kier Scrivener · Rating 5 out of 5]

"An orphan is one without continuity."

This is a book everyone should read. Especially every Canadian. It is the memoir of Guyanese Canadian Tessa McWatt. If you are like me and not that familiar with Guyana other than it is a South American country that speaks English. Here's the rundown it is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world. Tessa has ancestors who are Indigenous (Amerindian), African, Indian/South Asian, Chinese, Jewish, Scottish and Portuguese. This lead to the question of 'what am I?" and "Who am I?" To some she is Black, to some she is Indigenous,to some she is Latinx, to some she is Asian, to some she is Indian. But ancestry is not identity, though her features allow her privilege and discrimination depending where she is. She tells the history of her lineage, the story of discrimination, of colourism, Canadian's hidden history against minorities, the laws that say "we prefer immigrants from traditional sources' when building our infrastructure on the sweat of those we taxed to entre our country. Those we put in internment camps. Those we stole land from and killed. Those whose dehumanization made us wealthy.

But this book is not written for a white audience, it written for those who understand the weight of what history begot. Who still are affected by the lingering effects of plantations, segregation, racism. It is anatomy of her body and features, of her ancestry and of history. It is powerful. It is important.

Quotes:

"To strangers, even friends—on some days also to myself—I am images of violence and oppression. I am the language of shame and destitution, of slavery and indenture, of rape and murder. I am images of power and privilege, of denial and shades of skin, shapes of faces.”

"Identification is not identity. Shared traits do not equal shared identity. My identity has been fluid as I move back and forth across the Atlantic, back and forth between art and institution, between screen and page, between past and present."

“as I try to square my politics with my privilege, it seems that my only true inheritance is that I am always running somewhere else.”

"If we pay attention to language and its power - if we understand that shame buries our anger but also our compassion and makes us retreat from one another - there is a way forward. A new path."

"It's time for disobedience. For action. ... In our dispossession and our rage, we need to ask different questions. The single most powerful tool we have the our language and its ability to reinvent realities. We can talk and listen, undergo a collective psychoanalysis that sees us uncovering all that is difficult to know: the sources of shame and how we might move on from them."

[Emmkay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tessa McWatt’s mixed-race family moved from British Guiana to Toronto’s suburbs when she was a child, and today she lives in the UK. Here, she reflects on questions of race, history, and otherness that have shaped her identity, starting from the day in primary school when the teacher, prompted by an unfamiliar vocabulary word in a read-aloud, asked the children if anyone knew what “Negro” meant. A classmate pointed at Tessa, but the teacher responded, “No, not Tessa. Tessa’s something else. What are you, Tessa?” The following chapters are each loosely structured around an aspect of the body - Nose, Lips, Eyes, Hair, Ass, Bones, Blood, Double Helix, culminating in Findings, which reflects what she has taken away from her reflections, the process of psychoanalysis, and her having sent away for DNA analysis with 23andme. Rather than “what I am,” she has moved to “who I am,” from relying solely on ideas as empowering freedom, to valuing feelings as well. Sometimes it appeared meandery, but ultimately it was carefully structured and provided much food for thought. 3.5.

A particular takeaway for me related to the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, which provided compensation to slave owners amounting to 40 percent of the UK’s then-national budget. Apparently the loan was so substantial that the debt was paid off only in 2015 - as McWatt put it, descendants of slaves in the UK paid for two centuries for the compensation given to slave owners….

[Mai Nguyễn · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I hold on to the image of my Indian ancestor squatting not because I don't trust the science of DNA, but because it doesn't account for all the songs or symphonies we are, or for literature, or for out of body experiences, for my father in the birds, my mother's awe of the trees, for the perfection of being in the right life, the right body."

How can you not love a book if it has a passage like the above, and many more.

"Shame on Me: An Anatomy of Race and Belonging" is an honest, thought-provoking reflection of race, identity and what it means to be human. Reading this book, I feel like I am having conversation with a friend.

I wanted to dash through this book, to see how the author overcame many hurdles to become the successful author she is today, but I had to stop myself and read slowly, because this work deserves to be savored. Each word has been written with care, and so much pain and love that it etches itself onto me.

"Shame on Me" will stay with me for a long time because it requires me to look deep into my own heritage and acknowledge the many things I have tried to to hide from myself, for many years now.

A highly recommended read!

[Jugal · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was really good! Esp if you've thought about how far socially constructed groupings can extend to individual identity. Loved how she wrote it.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

A teacher singles out eight year old Tessa McWatt with the question "what are you?" The class has just been asked if they know what 'Negro' means and a young boy turned to point at Tessa. Tessa feels ashamed and embarrassed but doesn't understand why. How can something as complex as family history be condensed to a one-word answer?

Shame on Me is such a fascinating reflection on race, belonging and identity. It is deeply personal- part memoir and part examination of racial issues. The chapter headings are human anatomy based and are used as a way to 'dissect' race and McWatt's experiences with it. She uses personal stories and wider historical writings on slavery and movements against racism. All of this makes such an interesting book that I loved reading. She writes wonderfully and combines her stories with her reflections and observations on racial identity effortlessly. I'd love to come back to this another time because it really was enjoyable.

[Laura Hoffman Brauman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shame on Me: An Anatomy of Race and Belonging is a memoir that explores the intersection of the identity we claim for ourselves and the identity that others project onto us. The book opens with “What are you?” - a question that McWatt’s teacher asked her when she was 8 and closes with McWatt asking herself “Who are you? I fold my arms on the desk, put my head onto them and rest here. I don’t disappear. I wait.” When the memoir opens, the question speaks to answering someone else’s need to define, at the end, the decision of if or how to define is hers alone. McWatt’s memoir is somewhat of a structured stream of consciousness. As a reader, you are very much moving within her ideas but she has set up these reflections and considerations within the structure of the human anatomy with chapters such as eyes, hair, skin, and ass. McWatt’s ancestry includes European, Indian, Amerindian, African, and Chinese. The stories of her parents, grandparents, and other family members reflect their own experiences and backgrounds as well as their experiences with identity as perceived by others. She has also lived in Canada, London, and British and Guyana. Her experiences with racial identity have also varied depending on her location and how various places have collectively defined “the other”. McWatt is a beautiful writer and her memoir was an excellent launching point for our book group discussion. I highlighted a number of quotes - I’ll close with one that I loved.

“This is what I long to do: to speak beyond an identity that was named for me. I want to write towards light and the moment when all the bones dance.”

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

This look at the meaning of race from Canadian author Tessa McWatt is important, timely and creative. Looking at race through the lens of various body parts, McWatt explores both the pseudoscience of racism and how various body parts are racialized and play a role in the formation of one's racial identity. She also explores her own family history living multiracial and multicultural in British Guiana and in Canada. I learned a lot about the cultural history of Guiana and appreciated McWatt's perspective. This is a small book that packs a big punch. Well worth the read!

[Care · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

Shame on Me is a poetic exploration into selfhood, mixed-race identity, and belonging. From a young age, McWatt is asked “What are you?” as if she is a science experiment of mixed chemicals instead of a blend of histories and ancestors. She spits in a tube to find out the genetic make up of her background though her family stories alone tell her that she has blood relatives of Chinese, Indian, South American Indigenous, Portuguese, French Jewish, African, and Scottish heritage.

This spare memoir is split into chapters that dissect human features that have been racialised over the centuries. Her eyes tell stories of her Chinese relative who spent her life running. She speaks to the history of racializing people based on hair, skin, blood, etc. as she struggles to find a place where she truly fits, truly belongs though she does not fit neatly into any of the boxes society has created for race.

Internalized racism runs deep in her family and she struggles to claim every part of her equally. To not value some of her ancestry over others. She sees her family's history in the shape of her lips, the texture of her hair, the childhood photos that she pores over trying to see the humanity in the faces of patriarchs and matriarchs. She seeks connection to the past to help her understand herself.

For those interested in memoirs, critical race theory, mixed-race studies, the history of race and colonization throughout the world, you will love Shame on Me. Some of my favourite quotes below, but this is only a small sampling. My copy is full of flags and underlinings; it was a delight to read her words. She expressed sophisticated ideas through the spare, beautiful, profound language. I'm going to share a few of the MANY passages I underlined. This book is moving in every sense.

"It's my African ancestor...on whom I focus my imagination....hers is a story that has been buried deepest, most painfully ignored. Hers is the story that bears such deep shame that it has been erased. But the body is a site of memory. If race is made by erecting borders, my body is a crossing, a hybrid many times over. My black and white and brown and yellow and red body is stateless, is chaos. Her body is stolen territory.
I am the result of the movement of bodies on ships: as captains, as cargo, as indentured servants, as people full of hope for a change of survival."

"My ancestry centres on one crop: sugar. My history pulses with moments of miscegenation, a hybridity that eludes any bid I am asked to tick on census papers or job applications.
I am a song of sugar."

"I am a product of the east and west, north and south. These stories relieve me of the pain of belonging nowhere and give me the key to everywhere. As I once longed for a singular place, a singular ethnicity or plot of land over generations, I now long for its opposite, for a space beyond belonging. I have travelled to many places in order to scope a sense of ownership or repatriation, but as I try to square my politics with my privilege, it seems that my only true inheritance is that I am always running somewhere else."

"Blood brothers, in the blood, to sign your name in blood, in cold blood, bad blood, blue blood, blood guess, blood on your hands, blood and thunder: our relationship to blood is pervasive in language, in symbols, in fear and horror, in blood baths as societies oppose one another. Blood runs through us and warns us. In my anger over inequality I have become more and more hot-blooded. Perhaps this is progress."

"My youngest niece has wild, thick, tight curls that she has tamed in response to being the only black girl at an all-white high school. My eldest nephew is tall and lanky, big-boned, Viking-like, but with a face much like my Chinese grandmother's. As I listen, I catch myself thinking in these ethnic terms and feel ashamed. I have assigned body parts to regional definitions, and I am in the same trap of genes and ethnicity that I want others to escape."

"'What is race?' I say.
He shrugs.'Okay, what race are you?'
He looks at me briefly, then back at his phone and shrugs again. I feel guilty, forcing him to think about something he hasn't had to consider. When my brother prods him for an answer, he says, 'Everything.'"

"The main thing I want to tell the young people in my life around race is that the reparations my white self needs to make to my black and Indigenous self are not about race at all. The reparations have to do with taking action. Now. In shelving my obedience to a liberal system that says success is made in the backs of others, while state-sanctioned violence theoretically keeps me 'free.' That is not freedom."

"My original question — what am I? — is irrelevant. Apparently, I am a symphony."

[Jasmine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the tidbits of history quite interesting. For example, I had never heard of the Windrush scandal/generation.

Thoughts: The British are bloody hypocrites. They have invaded and colonized numerous countries, yet they don't want people of color in their country. (By the way, I am British.)

[Sandra Del Rio · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Is belonging something given to you? Or something you create?"

[Donya Ekstrand · Rating 3 out of 5]

Struggling to Finish this book!
And I was hooked when I started. Also a Guyanese woman of very mixed race, I felt myself drawn to Tessa’s analysis but after a while I felt as if the author was writing to her analyst. I get it...this insecurity of race and belonging but some people are more insecure than others and I think that the author is very insecure and throughout her life has blamed her lack of belonging on how “other people” perceived or did not perceive her. I stopped being able to relate or even understand. I also get that she moved and emigrated and went to different countries, as I did but I don’t think she ever got that hang of finding a comfortable place in each society. Sad ...and I urge her to keep trying I hope that she will find a place of comfort and belonging not based on race or slavery or plantation politics......but on belonging wherever you decide to.

But as I said interesting reading and I hope to finish. We are world citizens who have emigrated since the beginning of time....yes for all different kinds of reasons of which slavery is one of the worst but certainly not the only one and we must learn to create space for ourselves wherever we go.

[Heather Semotiuk]

Tessa McWatt's memoir explores how systemic racism is internalized and leads to mental health challenges for people of colour. McWatt is Canadian, lives in London, but was born in Guyana and has a family ancestors from China, India, France, Scotland, and Africa. It was really interesting and moving to learn about Guyana's history, and how colonialism, racism have impacted her family and herself.

I wondered about how to rate this book, and ultimately chose not to. The book wasn't as gripping as some others I've read this year on similar topics / experiences (Desmond Cole's book, for example; or Alicia Elliott's A Mind Spread out on the Ground); but it feels mean and wrong to judge such a very personal memoir. I've glad this book was published, and while I learned from it, I suspect that other people will be more profoundly moved by it.

So no rating it is!

[Mridula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully structured book with chapter headings associated with the human anatomy. I found this to be a promising start to dissecting one person's experience according to, as the title states, 'race and belonging'.

I appreciated McWatt's personal stories of mixed race ancestry. They were intimate and heart-searing. Structuring chapters with one line or paragraph, highlighting blank space, was a brilliant move that 'spoke volumes'.

I struggled a bit with how the stories jumped around and found myself losing focus on the central theme of chapters. Still, a lovely book worth reading.

[RKanimalkingdom · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF 50%

I kept switching from finding the book interesting to bring plain bored. At 50% I just lost all interest.

[Cindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

"To strangers, even friends - on some days also to myself - I am images of violence and oppression. I am the language of shame and destitution, of slavery and indenture, of rape and murder. I am images of power and privilege, of denial and shades of skin, shapes of faces. How does thinking these ways gt me anywhere but grounded, ground down, belonging nowhere else but in a story? How do I make a life from this?”

McWatt’s memoir is absolutely beautiful – a rich and intricate examination of race, culture, history and politics through the lens of the human body and her own heritage. It is written in exquisite prose and McWatt is clearly very well-read; the book is interwoven with literary references, linguistics and news excerpts. In this memoir she delves into ways in which the human body has been dissected through the centuries and used as a means to justify distinction between races.

She also explores the long-standing impacts of segregation and colonialism and even after its end, how its roots and with it the hierarchies and prejudices still run deep in society even now plus the existence of an ‘us and them’ mentality, not just in the constructs of race. Embedded in the book are her personal experiences from being a multiracial woman and a recount of her journey to reconcile all the thoughts and feelings of not belonging and the struggle to find herself and form her own identity which is not solely based around race or a ‘what am I”.

"Race is a construct, not a reality. It is an expression of power...Race is a construct, but the consequences of how a culture uses race are real, as is the violence committed against people for what they look like. There is violence in making a border. There is pain in being behind a wall."

It took me a while to read this to let it digest and it has definitely given me plenty of food for thought, particularly in the current socio-political climate with the ongoing BLM movement and policies that continue to discriminate and undermine BIPOC and minority groups.

"My happiness was still not possible while black and brown and yellow and red bodies and women's bodies and less-able bodies and queer bodies and poor bodies were still targets of neglect, hatred, violence. I knew I had to demand responsibility in others."

I know that this is a book I will come back to, re-read and get more out of it. Would highly recommend for anyone looking to gain more insight and understanding into race.

[Cameron Storm · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up "Shame on Me" for February, as I always try to read black authors for Black History Month. McWatt writes a beautiful exploration of race through looking at her own multi-racial identity. Structured like a research paper with a "hypothesis" of race, "experiment" of "what" she is, "analysis" of the different aspects of her racial identity, and finally her "findings" as her conclusion, McWatt weaves in a scholarly approach to the idea of race and identity, while expertly including her own life story. It is essentially in real time that both reader and author are exploring the concept or race, identify, family, and belonging through her experiences. The ultimate conclusion of it not mattering "what" you are, but "who" you are, equips the reader to seriously consider their sense of belonging in this ever-changing world. Yes, while we realize that mankind's concept of race is no more arbitrary that the concept of "six o'clock," in the world we live in, it exists. But so do we, in whatever way we are made up or identify as. In the end, it is all about who we are, and what actions we take towards change for the better - for everyone.

[Lara · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I feel we are now at a crossroad: a new moment of reckoning in which the economy, the environment, technology and our social lives are colliding - an urgent moment of many walls and few bridges, of history repeating and identities galvanizing. I feel uneasy, and I know my colleagues, friends and family do too. What is real? What is true?"

"The story of immigration in Canada is a complex one. Immigration to whose land? Whose country? Settler Europeans, First Nations, Inuit and Metis people still have land disputes that are unresolved as I write. The disputes are the source of deep wounds in a country that is perceived from afar as one of the most harmonious, integrated and progressive in the world. But Canada is also a country with a history of colonialism, slavery, the cultural genocide of Indigenous peoples through the residential school system, Japanese internment, the Chinese head tax, the War Measures Act and many of the same pitfalls of borders-making that arise in any nation state."

[Emily Talbot · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought this book because I thought it was going to analyse the politics of being a white passing mixed person with nuance, slay babe #real. However, I was so far off, this was simply a bad book. The structure was all over the place, the author constantly repeated herself, and in chapter one she wrote “When people ask what race I am, I say writer” and honestly it was the final straw.

[imeda · Rating 4 out of 5]

tessa mcwatt's writing in this is a standout. it's simple and clear and yet there is something beautiful in it. the way she formulates her sentences makes the book such a joy to read. it's a really good exploration of personal identity, race, and understanding your own sense of self. very good read and i really enjoyed reading it. definitely recommend

[Harmony Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

This mixed memoir and examination of racism, white-passing privilege and what the author calls plantation dynamics that stretches fingers into modern day, held me transfixed in its fluid style from the first page. It's honest, open, and searching in a way that really resonates.

[Fatima · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone should read this! I adored the way it was written. Truly admire the author’s courage in sharing her story with the world. I also liked the way past and current issues around the world were interwoven with her personal experiences!

[Gabriella · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really love how Tessa's writing style comes across as a mix of a history lesson, an autobiography and poetry all at once. Such a thought provoking read. I read this book with my book club and it really inspired some great conversation. Would definitely recommend

[Chinook · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is amazing. An exploration of family and race.

[Madelena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous! Dissection of the language and emotion around “race” provided new ways of thinking

[MaHfEr · Rating 5 out of 5]

3.7⭐️ amazing writing! I wish I did not have to speed read and write an essay about it for class

[Sakura Y · Rating 4 out of 5]

def a long read but so insightful
i learned sm ab race inequality trauma healing

[Lois]

wholeheartedly judging this book by its cover and immediately adding it to TBR bc it is just stunning