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A review by jujudepamplemousse
Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People about Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge
3.0
First, I would like to applaud the author for her commitment. Discussing subjects such as race is a extremely difficult thing to do because you constantely have to walk on eggs in order to convey your idea without shutting people up. To do so, the choice of the words is primordial and for that Mrs. Eddo-Lodge has done an amazing work. Her prose is really good and that most certainly helps convey her points. From the Preface, I was impress by how well she was able to transmit her feeling. Also, she has done quite a good research job in order to give more power to her words.
One point that disappointed me a bit about this book is that it was focusing only on England situation. From my understanding, racism is linked to history. Each country having its own story, racism may not be all the same in my country. Of course there were similarity with the situation in my country. I could completely get on with what she was saying about the fear of the black planet. About people believing that immigrants will steal what they have away. About right parties using peoples fear to justify racism.
However, I also find some differences with her argument. In relation to English history, she talks mostly about people of African and Caribbean heritage. If we would have taken the history of my country, we would have talk more about people of Maghreban community. At some point in the book, she said that ‘racism is a white problem’ and I couldn’t agree with that. Yes racism is a white problem if we take the case of Englands but this isn’t a fact that apply to all cases. For example, my Korean friend told me that racism in Korea is really important and so people from any ‘race’ that isn’t asian are sidelined from society and prejudiced against. By the way I don’t like the usage of race (‘In this book, the phrase ‘people of color’ is used to define anyone of any race that isn’t white’, Preface). There isn’t any race in the human species, all of us are Homo sapiens.
Another point that I regretted about this book, is that it was the point of view of one individual person. I don’t mean that what she says isn’t true, in the particular context of England I agreed with most of the points she made, nevertheless it stayed a one sided argument. I couldn’t agree more on what she was saying about free speech and so there should have been others point of view, opposed sided point of view enhance the discussion.
Regarding this, I was also perplex about the idea of black feminists groups, the ‘space solely for women of color’. Surely this is the perfect place to vent and support each other, however, how can it improved the situation ? Doesn’t it even worsen the situation ? Would it makes sense to exclude men from feminism group if they want to be part of it ?
Finally, toward the end of the book, I found the construction of the arguments less good than in the first part. I found that some arguments missed bibliographic references. For example, in the sentence ‘It was fair to conclude that it was women - almost certainly the majority black, almost certainly mothers - who were being pushed into precarious living situations. Even if that is most certainly the case, I would have taken out the ‘almost certainly the majority black, almost certainly mothers’ because it is not supported by any factual evidences and so for the scientific person that I am, it doesn’t give more impact but just hypothesis. Of course, this are just minor points but the construction of the argumentation is really important when wanting to prove something.
In conclusion, this book is an interesting one to read and gives one view regarding racism. I would still recommend to not only read this book, but to also read other peoples arguments and point of view to form an opinion and think about the best things you can do to prevent racism.
One point that disappointed me a bit about this book is that it was focusing only on England situation. From my understanding, racism is linked to history. Each country having its own story, racism may not be all the same in my country. Of course there were similarity with the situation in my country. I could completely get on with what she was saying about the fear of the black planet. About people believing that immigrants will steal what they have away. About right parties using peoples fear to justify racism.
However, I also find some differences with her argument. In relation to English history, she talks mostly about people of African and Caribbean heritage. If we would have taken the history of my country, we would have talk more about people of Maghreban community. At some point in the book, she said that ‘racism is a white problem’ and I couldn’t agree with that. Yes racism is a white problem if we take the case of Englands but this isn’t a fact that apply to all cases. For example, my Korean friend told me that racism in Korea is really important and so people from any ‘race’ that isn’t asian are sidelined from society and prejudiced against. By the way I don’t like the usage of race (‘In this book, the phrase ‘people of color’ is used to define anyone of any race that isn’t white’, Preface). There isn’t any race in the human species, all of us are Homo sapiens.
Another point that I regretted about this book, is that it was the point of view of one individual person. I don’t mean that what she says isn’t true, in the particular context of England I agreed with most of the points she made, nevertheless it stayed a one sided argument. I couldn’t agree more on what she was saying about free speech and so there should have been others point of view, opposed sided point of view enhance the discussion.
Regarding this, I was also perplex about the idea of black feminists groups, the ‘space solely for women of color’. Surely this is the perfect place to vent and support each other, however, how can it improved the situation ? Doesn’t it even worsen the situation ? Would it makes sense to exclude men from feminism group if they want to be part of it ?
Finally, toward the end of the book, I found the construction of the arguments less good than in the first part. I found that some arguments missed bibliographic references. For example, in the sentence ‘It was fair to conclude that it was women - almost certainly the majority black, almost certainly mothers - who were being pushed into precarious living situations. Even if that is most certainly the case, I would have taken out the ‘almost certainly the majority black, almost certainly mothers’ because it is not supported by any factual evidences and so for the scientific person that I am, it doesn’t give more impact but just hypothesis. Of course, this are just minor points but the construction of the argumentation is really important when wanting to prove something.
In conclusion, this book is an interesting one to read and gives one view regarding racism. I would still recommend to not only read this book, but to also read other peoples arguments and point of view to form an opinion and think about the best things you can do to prevent racism.