Download So You Want to Talk About Race Ijeoma Oluo 9781580058827 Books
Download As PDF : So You Want to Talk About Race Ijeoma Oluo 9781580058827 Books
In this New York Times bestseller, Ijeoma Oluo offers a hard-hitting but user-friendly examination of race in America
Download So You Want to Talk About Race Ijeoma Oluo 9781580058827 Books
"Ijeoma Oluo has some excellent advice for white folks in "So You Want to Talk About Race." This book may be most helpful to people who think "I'm not racist" or who read about Black Lives Matter and #takeaknee and can't understand why they're necessary. Oluo addresses topics that you may hesitate to raise with black friends, encourages you to revisit your understanding of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X and explains concepts including emotional labor and white privilege. Consider this anti-racism 101.
For white folks ready for the 200-level anti-racism course -- people who are ready to accept that White Supremacy is real and that they've benefited from it -- Oluo offers additional challenges. I especially appreciated her call toward the end of the book to move beyond talk and into action. Find a place, whether it's your kids' school or the local political scene, and use your privilege to help dismantle systems that have done so much damage to people of color.
If you're not ready for this book or don't view discussions of race as a necessary part of your life as a white person, I'd encourage you to read "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates and "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson, both of which led me to empathy and anger and prompted me to speak out in ways I hadn't previously."
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So You Want to Talk About Race Ijeoma Oluo 9781580058827 Books Reviews :
So You Want to Talk About Race Ijeoma Oluo 9781580058827 Books Reviews
- What author would write a book with a target audience that is likely to consider reading it, much less paying for it, akin to wishing for a root canal? Apparently, Ijeoma Oluo.
I am a white, sexagenarian, male, and former CEO. I am, therefore, a r#cist. (And yes, I am being sensitive to the censors who will look at this before posting it.) And I accept that because this isn’t about me. My personal tolerance is irrelevant. If a picture says a thousand words, an action is worth ten thousand pictures. That is how we should judge each other.
From my very privileged position in America, I have had a bird’s eye view of the systemic, institutional privilege (which in the negative is discrimination) that currently defines virtually all Western institutions today, including virtually all corporations.
Women have not shattered the corporate glass ceiling because the corporate institution was designed and built by men. Blacks have not achieved equity in the economic arena because it was designed by white men. Which is why, as Ijeoma points out, it really doesn’t matter if the man in charge is a racist or a misogynist or not.
The #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements are all about gender and racial discrimination. What has enabled misogyny and racism, however, is the definition and allocation of power in our institutions and our society. Tolerance is great, but it’s nowhere near enough. Until we challenge the structure of power, we will not address the underlying cause of social and economic injustice.
Here are the main takeaways I got from this book
- It’s not about me or Ijeoma. This is about structural injustice.
- It’s not about the tone of the discussion. This is about structural injustice.
- It’s not about intent. This is about structural injustice.
- It’s not about who is right and who is wrong. This is about structural injustice.
- It’s not about who can use what words. This is about structural injustice.
In the end, the great strength and the great weakness of our political economy is our over-riding emphasis on the individual and his or her opportunities and rights. There’s nothing wrong with that per se. But in this crowded, technologically enabled world we live in, it’s not enough. We can live individually but we can only be judged collectively. Our insistence that every conversation be about me, or you, or Ijeoma, or that person over there, is blinding us to the degree that we really are all in this together.
Scientists used to view the environment as a collection of independent and discrete parts. There was a prairie here, an Arctic ice field there, and a rain forest someplace a long way away. They now realize, however, that there is only one ecosystem and what happens in the rain forest is just as important as what happens in the Iowa corn field.
Other scientists have discovered the same thing about the other hard and soft sciences. Biology and economics don’t cut it any more. We have to think in terms of evolutionary biology and behavioral economy. Real understanding lies not just within a functional discipline, but also in the spaces that separates them and the overlaps that interconnect them.
So, I go back to my original question. Why did Ijeoma write this book? I won’t pretend to know the answer but it is clear that she has a genuine desire to see us face the issue. And after reading this book it is clear that the desire is genuine. And while it is theoretically true that if she is successful she will have to find something new to write about, so what? That is exactly the kind of binary, digital thinking that is at the heart of the problem. Life is not either/or. It is, with tolerance, and/but.
Ijeoma has a perspective. And the tone is sometimes a bit harsh. But how could it not be? In the end I think the most amazing and laudable thing about her language is that she obviously worked so hard to keep a lid on her passion. If she were white, we would elect her to high office.
Am I appropriating Ijeoma’s book by writing this review? Yes. But that’s irrelevant. I am not her. And my appropriation is going to paint racism with a white brush and, potentially, demean that pain. But that is the thinking of a binary thinker—either/or. And that, in the end, is what we have to overcome. Tolerant people are not binary thinkers. Tolerance is not a function of embracing the other side of the binary issue. It is about eliminating the binary divide. Ultimately, the racism talked about here is about institutional models of power that disadvantage one group over another. (And, as Ijeoma points out, there are many.)
In the end, I won’t say this was the most pleasant read. It was, however, a good read. It made me think. And for that I am grateful to the author. I won’t say, “well done,†because that would be an appropriation, as if I could evaluate how well she had represented her pain. I can’t. It’s hers, not mine. I will say, however, that “I listened.†And I listened because you were clear and authentic. And I do thank you for that.
A must read. Period. - Ijeoma Oluo has some excellent advice for white folks in "So You Want to Talk About Race." This book may be most helpful to people who think "I'm not racist" or who read about Black Lives Matter and #takeaknee and can't understand why they're necessary. Oluo addresses topics that you may hesitate to raise with black friends, encourages you to revisit your understanding of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X and explains concepts including emotional labor and white privilege. Consider this anti-racism 101.
For white folks ready for the 200-level anti-racism course -- people who are ready to accept that White Supremacy is real and that they've benefited from it -- Oluo offers additional challenges. I especially appreciated her call toward the end of the book to move beyond talk and into action. Find a place, whether it's your kids' school or the local political scene, and use your privilege to help dismantle systems that have done so much damage to people of color.
If you're not ready for this book or don't view discussions of race as a necessary part of your life as a white person, I'd encourage you to read "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates and "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson, both of which led me to empathy and anger and prompted me to speak out in ways I hadn't previously. - Everything I hoped it would be and more, easy to understand chock full of numbered points of advice on various topics, personal anecdotes that connect to the larger picture and the inspiration to have these conversations and also take action.
If you’ve read and loved and learned from Ijeoma Oluo’s words online or in social media, you’ll recognize her same understanding of the complexity of these conversations (especially those that white people should be having with one another) and also her passion for social justice.
If you’re not familiar with her incredibly important work, and you’re willing to listen openly about racism from someone with much lived experience woven beautifully into a larger picture where we can all have an impact - positive, if we choose - I’d highly recommend this book.
This book covers many of the basics as a reminder so some but also encourages deeper reflection within ourselves. There are parts that feel necessarily squirmy, but it’s clear that she remains focused entirely on helping us all have better conversations about race and take better actions to change a system that isn’t fair.
If you’re not sure that’s the case about our system that still oppresses people but are open to listen, this book is a great place to do that, quietly away from some internet fight and with time to pause and consider.
Please read this. - I love Oluo's style. She leaves your unquestioned assumptions nowhere to hide. She writes about systemic beliefs and the need for systemic change. I say that it's sad that this book is indispensable because I had thought, as a child during the Sixties, a college student during the Eighties and a professional during the Nineties, Aughts and Teens, that we would be beyond such deep-rooted racial divisions in America by now. But as Oluo points out, this stuff runs deep. In fact, it's worse than you think, or fear. Racism is America's Original Sin, and as the excellent work of Joy Buolamwini and her Algorithmic Justice League points out, racism and prejudice are literally being encoded into algorithms that shape decisions about what we're approved for (a job, an insurance policy), whether we're seen (by Facebook or other facial recognition software) or even what our punishments should be. We have to have a much broader involvement of race in all our conversations, and that means that white people like me need to cut right to the heart of issues and foster not just conversation, but meaningful systemic change. I'm so glad I heard Oluo on the radio speaking about this book, and even happier that I didn't delay in buying it.
