So you want to write a review . . .
I was initially reluctant to read this book by Ijeoma Uluo. I had heard it was “hard” to read. But I had purchased it, and had it sitting on my desk for a few months. “I’ll get to it.” One day. Just not today.
So then I was challenged by a friend to read it. I did—and found out that my fears were unfounded. This is a deep, rich, emotionally transparent book about race and even . . . how to talk about race.
I need to be absolutely clear here, as absolutely clear as Oluo is in her own objectives: you want to know about how to talk about race? Here it is: this is how we talk about race. Absent all the cringing and denial and deflection: we just talk about it, clearly, dispassionately, and without removing its sting.
This is an excellent book for many reasons. Like I said, the writing is as clear as the objectives: Oluo gets asked to talk about race, and replies “Here’s how to do it, and let me even show you how I’m doing it.”
It’s an excellent book because it pulls no punches but does not punch down. It is not a book designed to make white people feel bad for their choices and words–although it’s inevitable that the discovery of our white choices and words and the realization of the harm we cause in them can lead to introspection and grief. Instead, this book just speaks the words. Listen here. Examine that. Consider this view. What about this question? What do you think your friend or spouse or neighbor or co-worker or community leader or spiritual guide or whomever you interact with who is not white thinks about what we say and do in their presence, whether we are naive or calculated or just trying to obfuscate ourselves through a difficult conversation?
You want truth? You want to know how to talk about race? You want to know how to be clear and objective, honest and painful and funny and regretful? Here it is. This is how to do it. Your way to do it will be different, but it will look like this.
Get this book, and read it.