"I suppose this is the sort of knowledge the adoptive parents Mr. Wise discusses did not (and could not, without re-thinking their world) give to their Black child."
Very, very true. I am not black, but was briefly married to a black man in the mid seventies. That's when I found out first hand about racism in the U.S.
It's still there, and in some ways it's worst now. There is, of course, a sliver of peace for well-to-do blacks, but for the rest it's pretty bad.
I think being a black man in the U.S. is like being in hell.
Joanna