I feel about this book a little like I did about The New Jim Crow when it came out. If you have read a lot about racial justice, there won’t be a lot of new ideas. But the ideas are put together in a very clear, concise way. I appreciate any time someone is willing to share their experiences, misunderstandings, and growth with the world and this book does a great job of weaving the lessons learned in a life with history and theory. Much of the book addresses the internalized racism of black people and other people of color. It is for someone else to determine how good a job it does at that. The book feels very male-centric, especially the first half. That isn’t surprising considering it is the memoir of a dude, but I found it difficult to read more than half of a book about racial justice before women started coming into the picture at all. (I think there was one mention of Audre Lorde early on.) This omission turns out to be part of the authors learning process and is addressed later, but I suspect I won’t be the only woman frustrated by it. The main issue that I have with the book is how it talks about policy. I understand that he wants to steer us away from ideas of racism being about personal animosity and towards the policies and power that create inequality and oppression. In that I am in complete agreement. However, when someone says policy, it seems to indicate a focus only on advocating for legal/political changes within the scope of our current system. In other words, everything comes down to either begging at the doors of the powerful or becoming one of those powerful and the basic outlines of our lives don’t change much. There is no meat to the bit he mentions about anticapitalism because there is no hint at what we should do instead. There are a few hints that he believes focus on policy includes community organizing, but he certainly doesn’t come out and say that. And there is absolutely nothing to indicate that he has an understanding of organizing around creating alternatives. He speaks a lot about dueling consciousness in the book and I think one of the dueling consciousnesses that isn’t dealt with is the one between the man who underwent a transformation that allowed him to see the world differently despite the current policies and the one who thinks we need to change policies before people will change their minds. I would love to see him leave the beltway for a while, go spend some time with Cooperation Jackson or with folks working on transformative art projects. I don’t agree that policy is the start of change. Imagination is. And I don’t entirely agree that racist ideas follow racist policy. There is plenty of work out there showing how policy was actually designed in reaction to liberation movements. The people who develop policy don’t lead everything. They are just as often reacting to movements on the ground – whether it is Nixon’s drug war reacting to Black Power or the burning of witches in reaction to women’s rebellions in medieval Europe. There are some hints of liberalism and vanguardism in the way he talks about policy that that do not sit well with me. All that said, it is definitely worth a read. It is thoughtful and I found it forced me to think about some of my beliefs with more clarity and specificity. I look forward to seeing how his thinking evolves.