[From the Archive] Book Review: Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge

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[From the Archive are book reviews that I wrote on my previous other blogs.]

As I was writing down my favourite quotes from this book I realized that… I cannot write this review. That always happens to me when I love a book. Write a review for a book I did not enjoy? Heck, it’s like my hands cannot stop typing. Write a review for a book I love? All I can say is “YOU HAVE TO READ THIS BOOK!”

But I will try.

Well, I will not try too much because I sincerely don’t think I can do it justice – also, because I listened to the audiobook it’s hard to reference back to it and remember what I thought when reading a particular essay – and it’s been a while since I read the book (I read it last month, but that’s how my fish memory works - as in July 2020). But I will buy a physical copy and reread it and make sure to underline and highlight probably the entire book. That’s how good and on point Reni Eddo-Lodge’s writing is!

★★★★★
 
No doubt this will be my favourite non-fiction read of the year (2020 - and it was) – it’s really well-structured, the ideas are so clear and easy to understand, and I learnt so much! So this book will be mostly about what I learnt, because the book is flawless – but I cannot write a one-work review.
"White privilege is an absence of the consequences of racism. An absence of structural discrimination, an absence of your race being viewed as a problem first and foremost."
As a little background, I live in an Easter European country, 30 years since it got out from under a Communist regime, still dealing with corrupt politicians and poverty. The number of Black people in my country is pretty low, and they usually are exchange/foreign students. But racism is still alive – only the main oppressed minority are the Romani people. Only when I watched a film (Aferim!) I learnt that they used to be slaves in my country. Why wasn’t that thought in school? I have no idea – by the time I saw the film I was already out of high school and couldn’t ask anyone. I do want to learn more about Romani and especially how to help them in this society we live in. But I digress. My point was, I don’t really know much about racism, especially towards Black people, other than what I read in the news and experience in the media I consume.

So I learnt a lot from this book!

Firstly, I really liked that this book is about Racism in Britain because it feels closer to me and it made it clear that things are not wrong only in the States, but on dear old Europe too. Due to my inexperience I tend to have this somewhat rosy perspective of Europe and of UK, so this was like an wake-up call. And I learnt to check myself.
"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. We must see who benefits from their race, who is disproportionately impacted by negative stereotypes about their race, and to who power and privilege is bestowed upon – earned or not – because of their race, their class, and their gender. Seeing race is essential to changing the system."
The author does a great job taking these cliches that people use like “I don’t see colour” and deconstructing them and educating the reader on them. When I was in high-school I used to proudly say that about myself – even though I clearly knew nothing about the racist system we live in. Fortunately I grew out of that before I read this book. But I still think Reni gets her point across loud and clearly.

But there is one thing I did not understand until I read this book:
"We don’t live in a meritocracy, and to pretend that simple hard work will elevate all to success is an exercise in willful ignorance."
Whenever I was hearing about how, let’s say 20% of the management in a company should be composed of Black people or 50% women, I was always thinking that it’s not really fair and it makes it easier for other people and they could end up taking someone else’s place who probably deserved more to be there.

And then I read Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race and I understood that this is not giving Black people a higher chance to succeed over white people. This is about leveling the field. In the society we live in, white straight men already have a higher chance above anyone else to get promoted or get into the university they want. Because that’s simply how things are. So creating this mandatory quota makes the game fair for everyone else. It’s not about taking someone’s chance, because someone already has an advantage – and that advantage is the colour of their skin.

I remember I was listening to the part in the book where she talks about this on my way home and at first I was skeptical (because that’s what we tend to do, we tend to go in defensive mode when someone challenges our beliefs) and then when I finally got it, I started crying in the middle of the street.
"When I talk about white privilege, I don’t mean that white people have it easy, that they’ve never struggled, or that they’ve never lived in poverty. But white privilege is the fact that if you’re white, your race will almost certainly positively impact your life’s trajectory in some way. And you probably won’t even notice it."
I didn’t.