Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People about Race

This is a fairly short book inspired by a shorter blog post of the same name, written by the author in 2014. The blog post went viral, and changed the author's life, ironically ensuring a lot of white people DID want her to talk to them about race, and so her life since then and this book are in fact now quite full of talking to white people about race. Whether or not you're white people, it's a very thoughtful and intelligent book that will hopefully make you think deeply about things in ways you may not have considered.

Eddo-Lodge lives in England and speaks about racism from the point of view of a native-born Brit; this leads to different discussions and different emphasis from the racism in the USA that most people reading about racism are probably more accustomed to. She goes into the history of racism in England, which is not well taught in schools and less known than the US history; and she also dedicates a chapter to discussion race and class and why they're not interchangeable. The class system in England is so much more visible and openly understood than in the US that this makes the conversations around race different, and she points to phrases like "white working class" to break down both what they actually mean and how they're intended to implicitly blame the non-white working class for all the ills of the white working class, and the larger structure of racism behind these terms.

There's also an excellent section on feminism; Eddo-Lodge started out learning about feminism and then from there started to realize that Black feminism is a slightly different thing, and she has a lot to say about the inherently white-orientation of most feminism particularly in England, and how important understanding intersectionality is.

The discussions of white privilege are also useful. I still remember exactly when and how I became aware of my white privilege, which was in about 2005, and I'd like to think I've been pretty conscious of it ever since, but even so EddoLodge gave some eye-opening examples of situations that wouldn't necessarily have occurred to me, where she's been forced to choose between shutting up and smiling at a white person or experiencing some tangible disadvantage in a way that was probably completely invisible to the white person in that conversation. Examples like that both illustrate the phenomenon very clearly, and also illustrate why she later describes white privilege as a suffocating blanket, and how oppressive that must feel all the time to those who don't have it:

“White privilege is a manipulative, suffocating blanket of power that envelops everything we know...It's brutal and oppressive, bullying you into not speaking up for fear of losing your loved ones, or job, or flat. It scares you into silencing yourself: you don't get the privilege of speaking honestly about your feelings without extensively assessing the consequences...challenging it can have implications on your quality of life.”

Anyway, a thought-provoking read and probably one worth rereading a few times with more to be learned each time.

In terms of humans, I completely agree with Michael Hadjiargyrou, Chair of the Department of Life Sciences, New York Institute of Technology. In his 2014 commentary, he wrote:

‘We all evolved from the same ancestors and are, indeed, all virtually genetically identical to each other, making us a single race.’

It is true that humans do exist in discrete genetic sub-populations and in medicine, physicians consider a person’s ethnic background to help determine their risk of various diseases. But race is an example of typological thinking, it exists as a cultural construct that has been widely misused and continues to pervade our planet, deeply embedded in prejudices and narrow-minded traditions and values.

But Reni Eddo-Lodge says that

not seeing race does little to deconstruct racist structures or materially improve the conditions which people of colour are subject to daily. In order to dismantle unjust, racist structures we must see race. We must see who benefirs from their race, who is disproportionately impacted by negative stereotypes about their race, and to who power and privilege is bestowed upon-earned or not- because of their race, their class and their gender. Seeing race is essential to changing the system.

I’ve put off writing this review. I’ve done this because this will be one of the hardest reviews I’ve had to write. It’s hard because to write it I have to admit something I’ve been coming to realize over the past few years: I am a racist.

I’m am not proud of this and I’m working to get past the comforting guilt that allowed me to put off writing this uncomfortable review.

I can give all the usual reasons and excuses to try to convince myself I’m not a racist: I was raised to not see race, I have many friends who are people of color, I voted for Obama! It turns out that these are the very reasons I am racist.

“Not seeing color” is a myth. In the first place, I do see color. It’s just that I couldn’t admit it to myself. I realized this a couple of years ago when a friend was talking about getting mugged. As we talked, I was shocked when I realized that I assumed that he mugger was black. As Eddo-Lodge points out “mugged” is a racially charged word. Nevertheless, this moment shows me clearly that I did see color. In fact, I made explicitly racist assumptions.

“Not seeing color” also has an impact on my friendships. I recently reconnected with a grade school friend. During a long walk he revealed to me that he had repeatedly experienced racist abuse during the seven years we were in school together. “Oh,” I stammered, “I didn’t know.” After an uncomfortable silence, we moved on to other topics. It’s stuck with me, and I’ve come to understand that the reason I didn’t see it because I supposedly didn’t see color. For seven years one my best friends was treated like shit by our classmates (and possibly by me?) and I ignored it; I did nothing to change things.

And I voted for Obama. I realize now was that at least in part I saw Obama’s election as a sort of end of history. At last we were past the difficulties of race, at last we could all be one! The last several years have shown how naive and ill-informed this hope was.

But enough of what I’ve realised. There are two things that Eddo-Lodge has given me: a better understanding of the history of race in Britain and an action plan for combatting racism both my own and others.

As an American, my understanding of British history after the American Revolutionary War is pretty shaky. I filled in some gaps after living here for 17 years, but Eddo-Lodge has given me a good start on understanding the history of slavery and colonialism. It’s also served as a useful primer on the Windrush generation and the Stephen Lawrence case.

In terms of action, there are three things I’m going to do.

1. Listen. I’ll spend more time listening. Particularly when I’m being told that my behavior is racist or that behavior I haven’t seen as problematic is racist.
2. Stop going along to get along. It’s far to easy to let racist statement or behavior pass. Worse still, it’s easy to passively participate innit b
3. Speak up. When I do see something that is racist, challenge it instead of remaining silent. Look in it as on opportunity to discuss and educate.

None of this is easy. I’m not nearly there yet.

It’s rare that I read a book that I feel everyone should read. This is one of those books. Read it. Have an honest discussion with the book and yourself. I hope that, like me, this look will change the way you see the world. I hope that it will make your life more difficult. Most of all I hope it will make you an anti-racist b