That Mean Old Yesterday

by Stacey Patton Narrated by Robin Miles

Overview

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Stacey Patton penned this moving memoir describing her tumultuous childhood growing up first in a state institution and then in a fractured foster family. She makes a strong case to illustrate how the brutal legacy of slavery continues to affect African-American families today. "... a document ... striking in its endeavor to relate a unique individual experience to broader communal life."-Kirkus Reviews

Editorial Reviews

Library Journal

Journalist Patton (African American & U.S. history, Montclair State Univ.) serves up a riveting tale of anguish and ultimate triumph in this victim's account of a torturous childhood that is a testimony to the power of perseverance. In painstaking detail, she describes her fate and the brutality of those who perpetrated unspeakable cruelty against her. Her powerful story is, however, persistently haunted by an imposed analysis it could have done without. True, the sad tale of an abused child helpless before her adoptive parents and a system that failed her is a compelling one. But Patton evokes a parallel narrative in her explication of her experience: that of African American slavery and its legacy. It is an unfortunate parallel, constantly present, explaining away every incomprehensible deed and human frailty. The story is nonetheless touching and instructive; the style, penetrating and effective enough to warrant adult readers' time and attention. The language is shocking at times, though the shock is always intended. Recommended for large public libraries.
—Edward K. Owusu-Ansah

Kirkus Reviews

Patton's inspiring memoir of survival in an abusive adoptive family offers a well-informed and startling take on violence and racism in America. At five years old, the author was adopted by a New Jersey couple who by all outward appearances were model middle-class African Americans. But the facade dropped the moment they reached their gleaming house with manicured lawn and shade trees. Patton was the prisoner of a passive father and bitter adoptive mother whose frustration at her infertility was loosed on her adoptive daughter in violent beatings and emotional abuse. From ages five to 13, the author was the victim of terrifying assaults, including beatings with an extension cord, by a woman determined to keep the child under manipulative control. Upon entering school, Patton was shocked to discover that such violence was condoned by the community, whose deeply held Pentecostal beliefs reinforced the philosophy, "spare the rod, spoil the child." Merging her personal experiences with a provocative examination of African-American history, the author credibly argues that violence is a continuing legacy of slavery. She makes many plausible connections among the corporeal punishment of children, low self-esteem, fervent religiosity and fathers too weak to assert themselves after centuries of having their paternity denied. Patton charts her nascent awareness that the abuse she experienced was plainly not right, even though her adoptive mother's family and friends condoned it. She ran away and was eventually placed in a group home. Despite the outrageous negligence of her guardians, who did their best to discourage her, she won a full scholarship to an elite private boarding high school. Personaldiscovery combines with knowledgeable historical argument to create a document at once carefully reasoned and powerfully emotional, striking in its endeavor to relate a unique individual experience to broader communal ills. .

NOVEMBER 2008 - AudioFile

Considering her tumultuous beginnings—first, as a ward of the state in foster care, then, as an adoptee in a highly dysfunctional family—Stacy Patton has truly risen above the fray. However, this is not your typical rags-to-riches memoir. The young historian raises the question of whether the race and gender violence still plaguing contemporary African-American culture is yet another legacy of slavery. Robin Miles gives a brilliant performance. She is eloquent as Patton explores both her own and her race's history. Miles makes every voice compelling—from an undereducated contemporary black to a former slave giving an oral history. This audiobook is well worth the listener's attention. P.R. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170908820
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	04/11/2008
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

One

Some black children living on antebellum plantations often had no idea they were slaves. During their early years, they played not only with other slave children but also white children. They wandered freely and explored the plantations. Sometimes masters, especially if they were the biological fathers of slave children, took young slaves horseback riding, cuddled them, and rewarded them with gifts and other special treatment.

But most slave children did not have such an idyllic beginning. Children were the most vulnerable in the slave community, which was characteristically fraught with violence. White youth, at the urging of adults, often abused their black playmates. Older black children meted out cruelty on the smaller ones. Slave children played games like hide-the-switch. One child would hide a willow switch, and the others would search for it. The lucky one to find it got to whip other children at will, mimicking the behaviors they saw whites mete out to their parents and black parents dish out onto black children.

In addition to many forms of verbal, physical, and psychological abuse, slave children faced the threat of being sold at any time. Children often didn't know their biological parents and could be detached at any time from people who were familiar to them because they or those people were sold and shipped off to other plantations. The births of black children helped replenish a cheap labor force and perpetuate the system. During slavery, black children had economic value even before they were born. As property, they could be used not only for their labor but also as collateral for mortgages, to buy land, and to pay othertypes of debts. Their bondage also helped define what it meant to be white and free.

Slave children died in droves because they were not properly cared for. Old women, slightly older siblings, or inexperienced mothers had the impossible task of taking care of a large number of children in the plantation nursery. Like adult slaves, children were fed improperly and suffered many illnesses. Despite all this jeopardy, family, such as it was in plantation society, was an important survival mechanism for slave children. Family served as a comfort and layer of protection, as well as a buffer between the humanity of youngsters and the evils of the peculiar institution.

Copyright © 2007 by Stacey Patton

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