So you want to talk about race
"A current, constructive, and actionable exploration of today's racial landscape, offering straightforward clarity that readers of all races need to contribute to the dismantling of the racial divide. In So You Want to Talk About Race, Editor at Large of The Establishment, Ijeoma Oluo offers a contemporary, accessible take on the racial landscape in America, addressing head-on such issues as privilege, police brutality, intersectionality, micro-aggressions, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the "N" word. Perfectly positioned to bridge the gap between people of color and white Americans struggling with race complexities, Oluo answers the questions readers don't dare ask, and explains the concepts that continue to elude everyday Americans. Oluo is an exceptional writer with a rare ability to be straightforward, funny, and effective in her coverage of sensitive, hyper-charged issues in America. Her messages are passionate but finely tuned, and crystalize ideas that would otherwise be vague by empowering them with aha-moment clarity. Her writing brings to mind voices like Ta-Nehisi Coates and Roxane Gay, and Jessica Valenti in Full Frontal Feminism, and a young Gloria Naylor, particularly in Naylor's seminal essay "The Meaning of a Word.""
Stats for nerds
5recommend
8mentions
6people
2018–2021years
75% recommend25% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I found these twitter threads to be useful about this book: https://twitter.com/drchanequa/status/1278775116059598848
I agree with this thread, and it has a bunch of other great books listed:
https://twitter.com/RheaBoydMD/status/1276909706422829058?s=...
Here's a list of books mentioned in the thread that people may want to read.
The Warmth of Other Suns: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0679763880/
Sister Citizen: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0300188188
Pushout: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1620973421
This Bridge Called My Back: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1438454384
So You Want to Talk About Race: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1541647432
Killing the Black Body: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0679758690
How to be an Anti Racist: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Be-Antiracist-Ibram-Kendi-ebook...
Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American https://www.amazon.co.uk/Racecraft-Soul-Inequality-American-...
Why I'm not longer talking to white people about race: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Longer-Talking-White-People-About/d...
- > still, does not make it racism
Depends on your definition of racism. If you just mean "atomized, individual prejudice," you might be correct.
But this is textbook systemic racism, even if the cops aren't acting on a conscious bias. Even if their chief gave them clear orders explaining why, and the reasons ostensibly had nothing to do with race, it is still systemic racism because it falls into a pattern of systematic, nationwide discrimination which is irrefutable and that disproportionately affects people of color.
Recommend you read "So You Want to Talk about Race" by Ijeoma Oluo or "Me and White Supremacy" by Layla Saad to learn more about racism as actual experts on the subject understand it.
(Edit: typo)
- How does nakedness justify escalating the situation to voilence? "The law is the law" is just an excuse.
When people talk about systemic racism they're talking about how the system operates as a whole. As I've commented elsewhere, people need to educate themselves about systemic racism in this country.
"So You Want to Talk about Race" by Ijeoma Oluo or "Me and White Supremacy" by Layla Saad are good places to start.
- So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo.
It really opened my eyes to many issues about race I was not aware of and did a great job explaining the real problem is systemic racism. It had a pretty profound impact.
- If you are a non-white person, no, I would not say you have had your expectations set by experiencing white privilege.
You are welcome to empathize with white people. I often do. I am one. I empathize with that guy. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't acknowledge privilege.
If you can't fathom what this has to do with race, I'd suggest you haven't studied the topic enough. There is an ocean of history and rivers of current evidence that in America race drives a lot of this.
For example, you could go read Loewen's Sundown Towns, [1] which demonstrates that America had a major period of violent ethnic cleansing circa 1890-1930 known as the Nadir. That peaked with white people destroying America's most prosperous black district, firebombing it from the air and burning 35 blocks to the ground. [2]
You could go back from there and read about slavery and the civil war. You could read the various declarations of secession, where white people make clear they're willing to go to war because they believe black people are so inferior that they must forever be property. You could read the reports of the Freedmen's Bureau, and how even after the civil war there was endless violent aggression against black people.
Or you could go forward from the Nadir and read about Jim Crow. About white flight. About redlining. About racial exclusion covenants. Heck, right here in the Bay Area after WW II there was public debate over whether the peninsula should be declared whites only in its entirety.
From there you might read about the present. There too there's a ton of material. E.g., the classic resume study showing discrimination against black people. [3] And there are plenty of evocative books. E.g., Julie Lythcott-Haims's memoir Real American about growing up biracial. [4] Or Ijeoma Oluo's So You Want to Talk About Race. [5] And I don't think an understanding of American racial dynamics is complete without a look at white fragility. DiAngelo recently did a talk about her excellent book that's a good intro. [6]
I agree that America could be unique in the extent to which race matters historically and currently. But it's not like other countries don't have major issues with racial discrimination. Wikipedia has a very long list of ethnic cleansing campaigns, for example. [7] Congrats if your home country never had any of that, but that's not where you are now.
I also get why you might think discrimination was due to some correlative factor, like money. I used to think that too. But over time I came around. What changed was studying the history, looking at the evidence, and really listening to non-white people with empathy and an open mind.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Sundown-Towns-Hidden-Dimension-Americ...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_riot
[3] https://www.nber.org/papers/w9873
[4] https://www.amazon.com/You-Want-Talk-About-Race/dp/158005677...
[5] https://www.amazon.com/You-Want-Talk-About-Race/dp/158005677...
- If you are legitimately curious and open minded about digging more into this topic, I highly recommend the recently published book "So You Want to Talk About Race" by Ijeoma Oluo.
https://www.amazon.com/You-Want-Talk-About-Race/dp/158005677...
Related
Me and White Supremacy
1 recommend · 3
White Fragility
11 recommend · 80
Race and Culture
1 recommend · 3
The New Jim Crow
58 recommend · 97
Politics and the English language
112 recommend · 263
Intellectuals and Race
3 recommend · 6
