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A review by witmol
Racism: Stories on Fear, Hate & Bigotry by Winnie Dunn, Phoebe Grainer, Stephen Pham
challenging
reflective
fast-paced
4.0
This wide-ranging anthology of personal essays and anecdotes about racism spans from microaggressions to the overt to the internalised. This is not a brutal read, it is artful and reflective, sometimes even entertaining, all serving to reflect the various types of racism that affect the authors and their responses to it.
My favourites of the collection are 'Act like a Filipino', in which the author auditions for a role as a nurse with a surprising and hilarious turn of events, and 'Gheebah in the kitchen', in which the author overhears a supposed ally gossiping about her to a co-worker. It is the betrayal of the latter that demonstrates how lonely it can be to endure racism only to find the person you thought was on your side is in fact selling you out behind your back.
There is no preaching here. The anthology acts as a way for the authors to expel these incidents from their memory to share the exhausting range of ways in which race is made an issue and has an impact on everyday life.
My favourites of the collection are 'Act like a Filipino', in which the author auditions for a role as a nurse with a surprising and hilarious turn of events, and 'Gheebah in the kitchen', in which the author overhears a supposed ally gossiping about her to a co-worker. It is the betrayal of the latter that demonstrates how lonely it can be to endure racism only to find the person you thought was on your side is in fact selling you out behind your back.
There is no preaching here. The anthology acts as a way for the authors to expel these incidents from their memory to share the exhausting range of ways in which race is made an issue and has an impact on everyday life.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism
Moderate: Racial slurs