White Rage

This book rings even more true in 2025, as Anderson devastatingly works through US history to show how white abhorrence of Black progress has been one of the fundamental driving forces of domestic US policy throughout the centuries. Importantly, this book strips away the faux-neutrality of post-Civil Rights policies in government and beyond, revealing the unfairness baked deep within their core. With Cassandra-like foresight, this book also progresses to 2016, with Anderson illustrating what systematic forces need to finally be addressed to bring about a fairer country. Highly recommend

I’ve read a decent number of books on institutional racism, and I still learned quite a bit from “White Rage.” The author does a fantastic job of researching, and laying out in painstaking detail, the systematic strategies that federal, state, and local lawmakers have employed to perpetuate white supremacy. While I was aware of many of the high-level themes, I learned a lot about the smaller details. For example, I was aware of how the Iran-Contra scandal led to the crack epidemic, but had never heard of Tom Coleman and the arrests in Tulia, Oklahoma. Definitely worth reading.

Much more thoughtful than the title suggests, though perhaps not less incendiary. This is a concise and well-cited survey of the backlash against civil rights throughout the history of the US, up until the election of Trump. A very good read for black history month.