You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
jessibellepip 's review for:
THIS BOOK IS NOT FOR THE FEINT OF HEART, MIND, OR SOUL. Especially those who are white and struggle with being called out and made aware of the minor racist things about their thoughts, both unconscious and conscious, and actions. I've seen a lot of white people make negative comments about this book, and I feel a lot of it is because they might have felt uncomfortable with their confronting the white supremacist ideals that were within in them.
I absolutely love this book. It makes you confront yourself and the ideals that you are uncomfortable with. There were definitely moments I looked at myself and thought, "Oh, I never considered that, it's a yikes." I have a notecard where I took tiny notes on things that I need to look into more immediately. Again, this is going to be a book that I will read more than once so I can get the info, take notes, and then do activities. I think that's the best way for me to fully absorb information, and this is something I need to fully absorb.
I wanted to put some highlights of what I loved about this book, even though I loved so much of it:
- One of the first things that hit me was "when we talk about racism, we are talking about people's lives." I've said a version of this, but now I can use these words and cite this author.
- Another point off the bat I loved was that this isn't work for personal growth, but to be helpful to people and dismantle white supremacy.
- I LOVE that it was mentioned of the social construct of race. I knew it was, but the added information given in the book was great.
- One of my favorite parts was how people view racism as black and white, so a racist is bad and a nonracist is good. So if someone sees themselves as not a racist so they see themselves as the "good " person and therefore can fail to examine the racism in themselves. It also has a relationship to white fragility, which keeps white people from examining how they can contribute to white supremacy and when people call them out they don't see how they can possibly do anything racist because they're not a racist.
- White silence and exceptionalism are also tied into white fragility, and I loved reading about these topics.
- Tone policing and other forms of silencing BIPOC is gaslighting. That is not something I thought of previously.
- The covering of how people want to say they are colorblind, but that's racist. It goes into why it's racist.
- The section of allyship is helpful as well because it talks about things that are helpful and things that are not helpful.
- Tokenism was another topic I learned from as well as different forms of anti-blackness.
Overall, I love this book. I think everyone can benefit from reading it, but especially white people. I learned a lot more about racism, white fragility/exceptionalism/centering/silence, anti-blackness, feminism and its role in misogynoir , and many more other topics. It was a hard read, and I think a lot of white white people will feel attacked because of white fragility and feel compelled to give it a lower rating because its "critiquing people trying to learn." If you truly want to learn, you have to be able to accepting that you're wrong and accept critiques. This should be required reading of adults, specifically white ones.
I absolutely love this book. It makes you confront yourself and the ideals that you are uncomfortable with. There were definitely moments I looked at myself and thought, "Oh, I never considered that, it's a yikes." I have a notecard where I took tiny notes on things that I need to look into more immediately. Again, this is going to be a book that I will read more than once so I can get the info, take notes, and then do activities. I think that's the best way for me to fully absorb information, and this is something I need to fully absorb.
I wanted to put some highlights of what I loved about this book, even though I loved so much of it:
- One of the first things that hit me was "when we talk about racism, we are talking about people's lives." I've said a version of this, but now I can use these words and cite this author.
- Another point off the bat I loved was that this isn't work for personal growth, but to be helpful to people and dismantle white supremacy.
- I LOVE that it was mentioned of the social construct of race. I knew it was, but the added information given in the book was great.
- One of my favorite parts was how people view racism as black and white, so a racist is bad and a nonracist is good. So if someone sees themselves as not a racist so they see themselves as the "good " person and therefore can fail to examine the racism in themselves. It also has a relationship to white fragility, which keeps white people from examining how they can contribute to white supremacy and when people call them out they don't see how they can possibly do anything racist because they're not a racist.
- White silence and exceptionalism are also tied into white fragility, and I loved reading about these topics.
- Tone policing and other forms of silencing BIPOC is gaslighting. That is not something I thought of previously.
- The covering of how people want to say they are colorblind, but that's racist. It goes into why it's racist.
- The section of allyship is helpful as well because it talks about things that are helpful and things that are not helpful.
- Tokenism was another topic I learned from as well as different forms of anti-blackness.
Overall, I love this book. I think everyone can benefit from reading it, but especially white people. I learned a lot more about racism, white fragility/exceptionalism/centering/silence, anti-blackness, feminism and its role in misogynoir , and many more other topics. It was a hard read, and I think a lot of white white people will feel attacked because of white fragility and feel compelled to give it a lower rating because its "critiquing people trying to learn." If you truly want to learn, you have to be able to accepting that you're wrong and accept critiques. This should be required reading of adults, specifically white ones.