I’d seen a few friends (and strangers) on Twitter and Facebook talk about Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race (2017) by Reni Eddo-Lodge, and was very keen to read it myself. When it came out in paperback, I snapped up a copy and read it quickly – and it’s extremely good. I heartily recommend it – particularly to any white people who don’t think that white privilege is a thing. The main problem with this book, of course, is that the people who most need to read it almost certainly won’t. (Not that I didn’t need to read it – but I didn’t need convincing on most of what she wrote.)
The title comes from a blog post Eddo-Lodge wrote a few years ago – about why she was so sick of defensive white people refusing to listen to conversations about race, and how she was giving up on trying to help them understand. It’s an ironic title, of course, because this book is exactly her talking to white people about race – thank goodness. I had thought it might be more memoir-based, and there are certainly elements of her story, but what kicks us off is a chapter (‘Histories’) which is entirely objective. It’s about the history of racial oppression and the civil rights movement – in the UK. Even here, we hear a lot, lot more about the civil rights movement in the US, or South Africa, than we do about our own country. There is a common belief that class is the British inequality issue, and that race is broadly fine. Well, as Eddo-Lodge demonstrates thoroughly and yet concisely, this is not, and has never been, the case. She condenses enormous amounts of research very well, making this history section very accessible.
The rest of the book looks more at the lived experience of being a black person in the UK – and specifically a black woman – and explains how racism works in action. It is not, she writes, simply abuse shouted in the street or people consciously refusing to hire a black person (though it does include this); it is embedded in the systems that make up many facets of our society. White privilege (as she explains so patiently and well) is not saying that all white people are rich or have all opportunities dropped at their feet – it is an absence of the barriers and assumptions that people of other ethnicities face. As a white man, for instance, I have never had to worry if my race or gender will be held against me when I apply for a job, drive my car, go into a shop, or simply walk down the street. I have never had to feel that I am the de facto spokesperson for my race, or that I will be judged by what some other white man has said or done. I even have the privilege that I can decide when I want to engage in conversations and thoughts about racial equality. All of this is to say – it’s extremely easy to ignore or be ignorant of my white privilege, and it is only by engaging properly with books like Eddo-Lodge’s that I can fully recognise what it means. As a white person, my role here is to listen to other experiences and to listen to an explanation of the invisible frameworks of my life and my society – only visible if you are excluded from them.
Eddo-Lodge is an excellent writer and (praise be for popular non-fiction!) includes proper referencing – why is this so often absent? It leads one off in all sorts of other directions to explore. She also allows people with opposing views to have their say, even the bizarre and offensive Nick Griffin. I do wonder whether people like him need more air time, but she notes that the UK’s defamation laws could land her in hot water if she doesn’t give him a chance to air his thoughts.
Later chapters look specifically at feminism and class. The former I found particularly interesting – around the ways in which feminist movements have often been predominantly about white women, and how some white women have been reluctant to acknowledge that, though marginalised in one part of their identity (gender), they have privilege in another (race). She did lose points in my eyes by using the term “anti-choice” – nobody is ever anti-choice, or anti-life for that matter – and I would have liked a bit more interrogation around some more rational objections, like the abundance of theory-based rhetoric in what should be an accessible movement. But these are relatively small objections.
The afterword – a bonus of the paperback edition – looks at how people have responded to the book. Spoilers: people at book events tended to have a lot of opinions without having read the book.
I do realise the irony of saying how important it is that white people listen and try to understand while not quoting directly from the book at all. Sorry, Reni, I’m writing the review without a copy in front of me. But I heartily recommend this – it’s very readable, very informative, and has the potential to effect real change. If you’re scoffing at this review, I particularly encourage you to get hold of a copy. And if you’ve been nodding your head throughout, then you probably won’t have your life and perspective changed – but it’s definitely worth a read nonetheless.
