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alisazhup's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
“‘Racial oppression should always be an emotional topic to discuss. It should always be anger-inducing. As long as racism exists to ruin the lives of countless people or color, it should be something that upsets us. But it upsets us because it exists, not because we talk about it.”
Ijeoma Oluo guides readers of all races through subjects ranging from intersectionality and affirmative action to “model minorities” in an attempt to make the seemingly impossible possible: honest conversations about race and racism, and how they infect almost every aspect of American life.
This is a book all first year students at my college are going to be reading this year. When they handed it out to us, I was worried it would be difficult to understand. But while the book is centered on a heavy topic loaded with a lot of trauma and history, it really does inform you and equip you to have conversations about race and take action against racism.
I like that the chapters are not filled with an overwhelming number of facts and statistics, but there’s just enough to help me understand racism on a systemic level, like how the model minority myth makes us overlook Asian American economic disparity based on country of origin. At the same time, I appreciated that the author was willing to share her own experiences with racism. This helped me understand racism on a personal level.
Each chapter discusses a topic that is extremely relevant to today, and because of that, important to understand. I’m glad I got the chance to read this because a lot was new to me- for example, I didn’t know what tone policing was and I didn’t know the school-to-prison pipeline existed. Since I didn’t know about them, there was nothing I could do to fight them. There were so many moments where I felt called out for the ways I contribute to the system of White supremacy and I’m glad, as the author puts it, that I have the opportunity to do better.
Read this if you like/themes:
✅Politics/Current affairs
✅Social justice, activism, and intersectionality
Books similar to this one:
✅Stamped by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi
✅Anger is a Gift by Mark Oshiro
✅Slay by Brittney Morris
✅Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cultural appropriation, Racial slurs, Racism, and Police brutality
Moderate: Bullying
Minor: Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Slavery, Ableism, and Transphobia
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