Why Im No Longer Talking to White People About Race Review
Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People Virtually Race
Hardcover, 272 pages |
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The provocative title is hard to ignore, then is the book'southward cover. Seen from afar, it appears to be called Why I'one thousand No Longer Talking Near Race, which is intriguing enough on its own. Yous have to look closer to meet To White People hiding underneath it in debossed messages. Information technology'south a striking visual representation of white people'due south incomprehension to everyday, structural racism — one of the central ideas that British journalist and feminist Reni Eddo-Lodge presents in her debut collection of essays.
"Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People Nearly Race" is also the title of a blog postal service she wrote back in Feb of 2014. In that post, Eddo-Order wasn't trying to remove white people from the conversation or take them on a guilt trip; rather, she was but saying that she'd had enough. It was an act of self-preservation. She was done with talking to white people who'd never had to call back about what it meant to exist white, or who showed a deep emotional disconnect when she told them about her experience as a black woman, or who — instead of listening while she spoke — were almost instinctively preparing trite counter-arguments in their heads, waiting for her to finish only to tell her that she was wrong — situations that will sound but besides familiar to many people of color.
The post quickly went viral and, ironically, ever since she pressed publish she hasn't been able to stop talking about race. Readers flock to encounter her speak at events around the U.Thou; just few a days ago, organizers of an event at London's Tate Modern museum had to turn hundreds of people away from one of her events. She took to Facebook and Twitter to address the state of affairs, apologizing to those who couldn't go in — and pointing out her frustration at being underestimated. The whole incident, she wrote, spoke to "many of the issues I've written about in my book."
In this collection of vii essays, Eddo-Club delves into topics similar structural racism, course and feminism. But she begins with a crash grade in black British history. Despite growing upwardly in London, in school she studied black history through the lens of the American civil rights motility. It wasn't until she went to academy that she learned more about her country'due south brutal and extensive participation in the slave trade — which inspired her to larn more nigh what it was like to be blackness in post-slavery Britain. She writes about this history with the clarity and approachability of a curious learner sharing what she's discovered, giving necessary context for everything she'south going to discuss in the residual of the volume. And although Why I'g No Longer Talking centers on events in U.k., it's nonetheless accessible to readers of black American history.
That'southward the case throughout the volume, as Eddo-Order touches on themes that are sure to resonate with people of color everywhere. This is particularly evident in her exploration of white privilege, which she defines as "an absence of the consequences of racism" — an eloquent explanation paired with real-world examples of what happens when white privilege seeps into the chat about race, whether it's an informal chat with a new acquaintance or a wider national discussion effectually a racially motivated murder.
The impact of that blog mail dorsum in 2014 was a clear sign that people — both white and black — were hungry for more meaningful discussions most race. This collection of essays is Eddo-Order's contribution to keeping the conversation going. But she takes it a pace further and makes a telephone call to activeness. That call is muted at the first: "I hope you use it equally a tool," she writes in the preface, simply past the end, Eddo-Club is unapologetic in calling racism a white problem: "It reveals the anxieties, hypocrisies and double standards of whiteness. It is a problem in the psyche of whiteness that white people must accept responsibility to solve."
Information technology's that boldness, that direct talk which makes this book memorable. Eddo-Lodge pushes readers to recognize that racism is a systemic problem that needs to be tackled by those who run the system.
Silvia Viñas is a journalist and editor for NPR's Spanish-language podcast Radio Ambulante.
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Source: https://www.npr.org/2017/11/14/563728725/why-im-no-longer-talking-to-white-people-about-race-is-a-call-to-action
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