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

288 pages

English language

Published Aug. 8, 2019 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

ISBN:
978-1-63557-295-7
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4 stars (33 reviews)

In 2014, award-winning journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge wrote on her blog about her frustration with the way that discussions of race and racism in Britain were being led by those who weren't affected by it. Her words hit a nerve. The post went viral and comments flooded in from others desperate to speak up about their own experiences. Galvanised, she decided to dig into the source of these feelings. Exploring issues from eradicated black history to the inextricable link between class and race, Reni Eddo-Lodge has written a searing, illuminating, absolutely necessary examination of what it is to be a person of colour in Britain today.

7 editions

broadly, fine

3 stars

Content warning racism

Review of "Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race" on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Dette kunne vært en meget god bok, men som mange bøker med en agenda blir det for prekete. Forfatteren vil omvende oss, og viser minimal evne til å forstå andre perspektiver enn sitt eget, noe som utfordrer credibiliteten.
Forfatteren prøver ikke å forstå noen av de andre perspektivene, og gir lite grunnlag for dialog. Ta-Nehisi Coates sin personlige bok om samme tema er langt mer overbevisende, nettopp fordi den lar meg trekke konklusjonen, med tilsvarende sterkere effekt.

Review of "Why I'm no longer talking to white people about race" on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

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, …

Review of "Why I'm no longer talking to white people about race" on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

An excellent look at Britain's history and ongoing issues with racism. The book feels like a collection of closely related essays that build on each other, explaining and discussing issues like white privilege, systemic racism and intersectionality.
Perhaps the only oversight is that there isn't much discussion of how racism interacts with religion, but given the breadth of topics it does covers and the deep minefield of that area this isn't a major issue.
If you feel under informed about the reality of racism in the UK, this is a great place to start.

Review of "Why I'm no longer talking to white people about race" on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

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. …

Review of "Why I'm no longer talking to white people about race" on 'Storygraph'

5 stars

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 …

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Subjects

  • Racism
  • Great britain, race relations