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In theory, nobody has a problem with anti-racism. In practice, as soon as people start doing anti-racist things, there is no end to the slew of commentators who are convinced anti-racists are doing it wrong. It even happens among people who consider themselves to be progressive.

Release Date: November 7th, 2017

Genre(s): Non-fiction, Race, Feminism

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Pages: 288

Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Synopsis

Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge started as a blog post with the same title. Since then, she expanded her post into a full book about conversations about race. From experiences in Britain to white feminism to the ties between race and class, Eddo-Lodge shows readers the prevalence of racism in our world today. She also shows readers how to acknowledge and counter racism and work towards a more equal society.

Review

Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race is an essential read. Whether you’re new to anti-racist education or have already learned quite a bit, this book provides a lot of useful and important information. Even if you’re well-aware of many of the topics covered in this book, Eddo-Lodge intertwines history, statistics, and her own personal experiences and perspectives into each topic. I especially appreciated her insights on the topics I was most and least familiar with because of her perspectives and personal experiences.

Reni Eddo-Lodge provides so much information about how systemic racism has such a heavy impact to this day. She points out so many day-to-day occurrences, microaggressions, and structures that many white people may not realize even exist. A discussion that I particularly found enlightening was how white people are raised and educated to view racism in terms of “colorblindness”,  but our system acts in an entirely different way. In order to create positive change, we need to ditch this idea of being colorblind and realize that we are not as equal as we pretend to be.

Something especially helpful about this book was the author’s focus on those who attempt to counter anti-racist agendas. Those that are working on developing an anti-racist mindset will learn quite a bit about how to have productive conversations with those that remain skeptical about anti-racist efforts (whether they realize it or not).

This book also heavily covers intersectionality, what it means, and how to consider the impacts of intersectionality in our day-to-day lives. This was one of the topics of conversation that I was most looking forward to reading about, and Eddo-Lodge’s experience with being the only black woman on an otherwise all-white panel said numbers about representation for a movement that is supposed to look out for so many people.

‘When feminists can see the problem with all-male panels, but can’t see the problem with all-white television programmes, it’s worth questioning who they’re really fighting for.’

There’s really nobody I wouldn’t recommend Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race to. Everyone should read this book. If you want to learn more about how to become an anti-racist, read this book to learn how. If you’ve already have some anti-racist education under your belt, read this book to learn even more and learn from the author’s insights and experiences. And if reading the title of this book made you feel uncomfortable, angry, or defensive…then this book was made for you.