Reni Eddo-Lodge

I'm about four years late to this urgent, searing and ferociously intelligent work. In Australia, we are past due to be properly having honest conversations about race. This book reinforced to me the critical importance to ensuring any conversation about inequality, about injustice, about barriers, has race very much in the centre of the frame. Of course, where I live, blak people have been here for 60,000 years. Oh, and happy NAIDOC week btw. I'm particularly grateful to Reni Eddo-Lodge for writing this book, because it came from a place of profound exhaustion, the mental and emotional labour costs of managing white fragility having taken their inevitable toll. So, as a white woman, I'll put my hand up and say that I work at not expecting people of colour to always do the hard work of educating me about what it's like to live in their skin. I acknowledge that I have benefited, invisibly as well as tangibly, from white privilege. I will continue to amplify diverse voices to the best of my ability. I will provide bystander support when required. I will do anti-racist work in when I am in white spaces. I will make myself uncomfortable if it means I can be a better ally. "There is no justice. There's just us."… (more)

Definitely a recommended read for anyone who’s provoked by that title (as was I)! In fact I disregarded this book just because of the title sounding divisive, discriminatory and radical.

I took to reading this book because I made a pledge to focus on books that challenged my thinking, challenged my internal confirmation bias. As a socially-liberal centrist, who often disagrees with the solutions intersectional feminism proposes - this book ticks those boxes.

I was about to give it five stars but I have a few issues with it. This book reflects the experiences of POC and other marginalized groups in the western world, and therefore the tone is rightfully frustrated and angry. However, sometimes it could be a little more neutral and more aware of it’s own generalizations. Just for the sake of establishing a more productive dialogue. Perhaps most of all I wish she would debate some of the common centrist counter arguments in an intellectually more sophisticated and nuanced way.

Anyway, read it, especially if you “disagree” with the title.… (more)

I am not the target audience for this book, but I still strongly encourage everyone to read it as Eddo-Lodge addresses essential factors underpinning the structure of our society.

This year (2018 at time of writing) is exhausting and feels like it's gone on forever. I recognize part of that fatigue has been due to doing ally-adjacent work of explaining in conversations why coded language and power structures are harmful (it's unfair to put the burden of educating the unaware on people of color, but as I am a non-black POC, I feel I can be useful here). A friend was accused of "reverse racism", and their acquaintance had to gently but firmly be informed that racism is prejudice power, so it doesn't check out to accuse their one black acquaintance of it. Eddo-Lodge goes into detail with history and statistics on why this is so.

The chapter on intersectionality with feminism also struck a chord with me, as I have [white] female friends who mentioned early in the current administration that they just didn't check the news any more as it was stressful/frustrating/etc. I absolutely understand the need for relief from the firehose onslaught of, well, everything but at the same time, there are fellow citizens who cannot afford to tune out as policy changes immediately affect them.

I was caught off guard by this book being centered on British structural racism, but realized that as an American, most of my prior reading is centered on a domestic lens. There's a cool comfort in recognizing other countries have similar issues (though we arguably inherited it from the mother country before ah, making it our own). Not sure if other US readers are aware, but typically when Brits refer to Asians, they mean South Asians instead of East. The Asian diaspora includes everyone descended from Asian countries, but it's an interesting geographical linguistic distinction (and a good reminder that I and fellow east Asian Americans need to show solidarity with our brown brothers and sisters).

Societal struggle is not a zero sum game. The "take back our country" rhetoric is frustrating because the success of black and brown people does not diminish white people in the same field. It's not the job of minority folks to educate our white friends, but this book is a good start.… (more)