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

Book, 2017

Premise - In 2014, Reni Eddo-Lodge posted a frustrated, lengthy blog post entitled “Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race.” To her surprise, the post gained massive response, largely with a recognizable divide between complaints from white individuals, and praise and sympathy from people of color. In her first book, Eddi-Lodge deconstructs her own blog post and furthers her points to educate people of all age, gender, and race, the importance of anti-racism, thereby, very much so talking to white people about race.

Review - The title of this book is just so daring, controversial, blasphemous even! People who reject reading this book on the basis of the title, namely people who are white, would be largely missing out on a book that is far more nuanced and empathetic than the title suggests. This book was recommended by Emma Watson for “Our Shared Shelf” to much outrage in the social media comments, and surely there will be similar push back when Emma does her interview with Reni. This largely demonstrates the point that the book is trying to make, that people don’t listen to one amother enough or believe in their plights.

The world and the issues within it are not black and white (pun shamelessly intended). On a personal note, I am mixed race. Half asian, half white, I really find it impossible to identify with one or the other. Therefore if a form asks me what my race is, and mixed race is not ak option, I will literally answer “Other” before I pick any one specific choice because it doesn’t feel appropriate to align with one. Instead of feeling like I have two races, I always felt like I had no race, and that my lack of race gave me an objective lens through which to view race politics. To some extent, I still believe that to be true, but literature like this helps me see that this feeling of “no race” is not necessarily unique. It’s actually a common phenomenon among white people, so maybe I’m more white than I thought. The point is that race is such a non-issue in my life that it becomes, personally, irrelevant. That’s the definition of white privilege, not that whiteness gives you a leg up. It just doesn’t push you any further down.

This book focuses on racism and anti-racism efforts in Britain specifically, which is strangely ignored. I studied abroad in England and I remember a conversation I had with our contemporary history Professor. An old, gay white man, and fiercely liberal, he was still under the impression that race wasn’t nearly as pressing in Britain as it was in America, as the historic tension was so different. Different, sure, but less? I believed him until I read this book. (I loved that professor, and he was super well-intentioned, so no disrespect to him.)

I loved the historic background information given in this book. Very objective, very factual, yet powerful. Reni is truly a skilled writer. I loved the discussions of gender and class and how they intersect with race to create an oppression that’s entirely new. For the people who immediately recoiled at the title, imagine instead said to women “Why I’m No Longer Talking To Men About Feminism” or to the poor “Why I’m No Longer Talking to Rich People About Class.” For white women and the white working class, using these comparisons  I hope are helpful to understand the point. They might make one think “Yeah, maybe that’s not the most mature way of going about it, but I get the frustration. I feel like that sometimes too.”

Because Reni, by the time she reads this book, recognizes that we must not shut ourselves off from any conversations about race. Racism is still alive and well today, and it needs to discussed. The problem is that is a huge burden to put on the people whom racism affects. Must they always be the ones who have to speak up and educate? It’s understandably frustrating to one’s core.

The hardest part of the book for me to read was that initial blog post, which was written out of that very same frustration. Of course this labeling of “white people” was uncomfortable - it’s still an alienation, an othering. The book tries to focus on the fact that it’s more of political “whiteness” that’s being attacked, not whitenpeople, the same way feminism attacks the patriarchy more so than men. But structures are still made of people, as she also points out.

There is spectrum here to consider. On the one end we have any sort of “othering,” which Reni is admittedly guilty of at points. Next on the spectrum is prejudice, followed by discrimination. At the far end of the spectrum is the type of vast, structural oppression this book speaks of. Here’s where we run into some trouble, however. A dictionary definition of racism, and the widely accepted use of the word, is attached to the “discrimination” part of the spectrum, or maybe even the “prejudice.” Reni Eddo-Lodge does not consider that to be racism. To her, discrimination by race is morally wrong, but it’s not racism. She only assigns the word racism to that of structural racism. This confusion over the definition can cause some irreconcilable riffs. Clearly, structural racism, by definition, only goes one way. It only affects people of color. Discrimination and prejudice can theoretically affect anyone. As a result, “reverse racism” has an existence that is dependent on which definition one uses. If racism is discrimination by race, as I believe it is and is as stated by the dictionary, then racism can and does affect white people. This is the definition of racism that is most easily understood, and I believe it may be too radical to believe otherwise. However, I think it’s just as important, if not more, to understand the power of structural racism and attack it as a force. I just don’t feel comfortable limiting racism to that of structural racism, and that made this book difficult for consumption at times.

The idea in its essence, however, is very easy to get behind. Make any efforts to stop and attack structural racism. That means understanding that this is not a post-racial era, and we as a society need to be actively, and not passively, anti-racist. This is no easy task when you realize how engrained white privilege is into society, in ways that are so unconscious to us.

The last thing I want to acknowledge that this book discusses a lot about is color blindness. To
Reni, color blindness is dangerous, and she makes a lot of good points as to why this is the case. Very eye-opening. At the same time, I don’t believe it’s wrong to dream of a world that can one day not let race influence one’s judgments. This is not the same as color blindness. We see race, we observe it, we know and understand its history, but what if that’s where our thoughts stopped? There is a process the brain makes of first observing, then describing, then judging. It happens so quickly that it’s difficult to discern those three steps, but they are distinct. When I was a kid, this may be due to my own half-whiteness, but I did truly think that I never “saw” race, and was color blind to that effect. That is to say, I saw it, but that’s it. No judgments came after because I didn’t know the stereotypes. Learning about those stereotypes only then had the power to evoke them, which is one example about how specifically talking about race as an issue then added fuel to the potential of racist stereotypes. This is an argument for the hope of a “colorblind-ISH” future. I just acknowledge, with the help of Reni, that it may not be helpful for the present because for the kids of color, they don’t learn the stereotypes. They live them, and to ignore them is a structural form of gaslighting.

Still I would like to think that most would agree with me in the hope and fight for a future in which truly, race is not linked to any form of judgment. (90/100)

Quote - “If you are disgusted by what you see, and if you feel the fire coursing through your veins, then it's up to you. You don't have to be the leader of a global movement or a household name. It can be as small scale as chipping away at the warped power relations in your workplace. It can be passing on knowledge and skills to those who wouldn't access them otherwise. It can be creative. It can be informal. It can be your job. It doesn't matter what it is, as long as you're doing something.”

If you liked this book, I recommend Invisible Man!

Written by Reni Eddo-Lodge
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing

EDIT 10/20/18: On October 15th, I watched the interview between Emma Watson and Reni Eddo-Lodge and it was fantastic. It definitely gave me even more empathy for Reni for a number of reasons. Mostly for her initial blog post. I wrote about how it was the most uncomfortable part of her book to read, but still, she made it very clear in the interview that she wrote it in a rightfully emotional place, expecting nobody to read it. Nobody read her blog, and then all of a sudden, the post blew up, and now suddenly, her emotional rant during that one snapshot moment of her life has become immortalized. It's not a perfect blog post, but that's not why she wrote it. She wrote it to write for herself, and that's why she's a writer. I also liked how she talked about how people ask her, "Well what should I do?" and she has no answers. Her skills are in journalism and writing, so that's what she does. But she's not a politician, or a guru. We all have to fight the fight using whatever personal skills and place in society that we have.