Reviews with content warning for Hate crime - Dlaczego nie rozmawiam już z białymi o kolorze skóry

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Dlaczego nie rozmawiam już z białymi o kolorze skóry by Reni Eddo-Lodge

25 reviews

samdalefox's review against another edition

challenging informative sad slow-paced

3.5

Renni Eddo-Lodge provides a good primer and accessible book on institutional racism embedded into our UK history and culture. It is a good entry point for anyone wanting to become actively anti-racist. Anecdotal evidence for this, my mum has bought a copy of the book to read! A 57 year old sheltered white woman is open to self-learning and I'm proud of her. It seems to have a wide appeal to the people that need to read this... white people.

Main con: the larger points on intersectionality (particuarly around that of class) I found to be overly simplistic, probably because I've read more around the subject - I'd recommend reading Bell Hooks and Angela Saini, plus Eddo Lodge credits the coiner of the term intersectionaliy Dr Kimberlé Crenshaw. I also found this slow to read as an audiobook, so I read it at 1.5x speed. Main pro: It gives a UK perspective with UK examples. This may be obvious but it's important to highlight. A common theme in our culture is the ignorant view that racism isn't a problem here because it doesn't look exactly like that what we see in American culture, news, and anti-racist literature. American civil rights history often eclipses the UK one. The UK absolutely does have racism and a rich civil rights history and Eddo-Lodge does well to introduce many contemporary examples across England that should shake up newcomers to the topic. My favourite quote on this subject: "Faced with collective forgetting, we must fight to remember".

Ultimately, although I personally didn't find the way it was written very engaging, I have learnt more and I greatly value how accessible the book is, I genuinely think it will engage a wider audience that we need to become engaged in anti-racism. The author recognises that racism is structural, that structures are made out of people and thus are an amplification of personal prejudices. I have hope that this book starts that process by challenging and educating the UK population on our personal prejudices.

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lana_sbrt's review against another edition

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challenging informative inspiring medium-paced

5.0

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lish_e's review against another edition

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challenging informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.5

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josxphinchen's review against another edition

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informative reflective slow-paced

3.25

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meganamelia's review against another edition

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challenging hopeful informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

3.5

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gabiabudhabi's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative sad fast-paced

5.0

Must read!

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flara's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

3.75

Eddo-Lodge states that she owes her respectability to the fact that against all odds, she was able to follow a professional trajectory very similar to those she criticises. She specifically mentions that she speaks and writes like them. As much as this statement makes you think about the way things are, and how they shouldn't be, I cannot disagree with it, because this book truly is very, very digestible. It starts off as a reflective academic-style text, becomes more and more personal throughout, until it morphs into anger-fuelled call for action in the last chapters. When I got to the 3rd chapter 'What is White Privilege?' I found myself reaching for a pencil and underlining important passages, and could not let go of the pencil until the very end. I don't know what essay I'll be writing since I'm no longer in university, but somehow I felt that these quotes were important and I need to make note of them.

Now I must say that as the book progressed, the writing became less fact-based and more emotional. I can't really blame Eddo-Lodge, she has every right to feel outraged. She wrote from her experience, which is experience shared by far too many. We don't need a statistic, an exact number, in order to believe or understand that yes, racism is truly ever-present and encompassing of non-white people's lives. Especially if those numbers had been laid out in previous chapters. I specifically mention this, because it has been pointed out in other reviews. I personally don't mind this, I think there is a need for an outcry where necessary. I haven't read as much as I would have liked about this topic in the past, I have to shamefully admit, therefore my review might be favourable due to this fact.

I enjoyed reading other people's perspectives, such as the interview (well, not really, but anyway) with Eddo-Lodge's mixed-raced friend, or her Texan white friend. I wish there were more, I think they intensified EL's point. The Nick Griffin interview was quite short, but oh my, so intense. I wanted to punch him through the book. How EL kept her cool during this phone call is beyond me.

All in all a great, essential read.

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