Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race

This cover and title alike will surely catch your eye, but this book wasn't written to make white people feel bad about things they have no control over (like the race they were born into). It's written to help everyone do something about what we have control over (challenging racist ideas and policies). Like Kendi's work, though by nature critical, the takeaways are determinedly hopeful.

This is a refreshing perspective after reading several books about the US. Eddo-Lodge is British, and a lot of the history she recounts was new to me. Interestingly, she says her history lessons about racism growing up also centered the US, as if one country has a monopoly on structural white supremacy.

She also writes about how anti-racism relates to gender, class, and feminism. Her book taps into the 2008-2018 era, from the Great Recession to the aftermath of Brexit and electing DJT. She talks about persecution complexes and how nationalists co-opt progressive terminology to justify anti-immigration sentiments, Islamophobia, and general claims of reverse racism.

This is both very readable and nuanced. Eddo-Lodge is fantastic at reducing complex sentiments to single sentences in a way that encompasses all the nooks and crannies of an idea. It's superbly done and I'm sure anyone who picks it up will get something out of it.