Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge, UK, 2017

This is a book that should be read by everyone: white, black, yellow. . . and it should be read at least twice. I say this because there is so much in the book, it is impossible to absorb everything with only one reading. Eddo-Lodge manages to alter perspectives a few degrees, so that even those who would have called themselves anti-racist begin to wonder if that is actually the case.

An intelligent, award-winning journalist, Eddo-Lodge, skillfully puts forward her argument that discussing race is all about discussing white identity. In fact, as she writes in her conclusion, it is about white anxiety. White privilege, as she puts it, is simply an absence of the consequences of racism, and white people, seeing how non-white people are treated, do not want to be relegated to minority status.

Growing up in a mixed-race family (English mother, Carribean father), Eddo-Lodge was made very aware by extended white relatives of those parts of her appearance and psyche that were more white than black. She was encouraged to be thankful for these mercies that might eventually admit her to the anti-chamber of white society.

Read the book and ponder over it. The only way we can hope to eliminate the fences surrounding the topic of race is through open and honest discussion.

The photo of Eddo-Lodge is from Time Magazine