Abstract
Like many others, I ordered this book in the wake of the killing of George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer in America and the wave of Black Lives Matters protests that swept across the globe as a response to his killing. As a white woman, I felt the need to educate myself, conscious that I really needed to be more aware of the history and circumstances in which racism continues to be allowed to thrive. I was keen to try and find out how I could do something, however small, to be a part of the movement to afford change. This book was a good place to start.
Reni Eddo-Lodge takes the reader briefly through black history in Britain, explaining some of the foundations of racism in our country and how this has affected black people in Britain. Of the histories and accounts referenced in the opening chapter I only knew of a few high-profile cases, such as the murder of Stephen Lawrence and the Windrush scandal but, I’m ashamed to say, many of the other cases were new to me. This was therefore both enlightening and educational, confirming to me the lack of time and space given to black history within our current education system and British culture more widely.
Subsequent chapters seek to open up discussion, debate, and thought about institutional racism, white privilege, fear of a black planet, feminism and race, and class and race. Each chapter is as thought provoking as it is informative. I can’t help but think that white people will read this book and feel challenged and uncomfortable, exposed by their whiteness, while black people will read it and feel their lived experiences are finally being validated. The power of both these things cannot be underestimated.
As a white reader there were many times I squirmed in discomfort at the weight of my whiteness, because of what white people have done historically and what they do currently to our country and communities. Reni Eddo-Lodge’s writing style is eloquent and powerful, but this book was uncomfortable to read and that is largely the point. This book stemmed from Reni Eddo-Lodge’s blog post of the same name, which went viral in 2014. In that blog post she talked about her frustrations of trying to speak to white people about race who would frequently ‘refuse to accept the legitimacy of structural racism and its symptoms’. She talks about the defensiveness of white people when faced with the reality that their whiteness has afforded them a privilege, power and opportunity that their black counterparts haven’t had.
Reni Eddo-Lodge points out that white people’s success through school, higher education, and employment is not necessarily all as a result of hard work, but also due to white privilege and structures in place that support and encourage white people. For me, this was hugely important to read as frankly, until relatively recently, I would have put my own academic and professional successes down to hard work, barely considering the role of my own white privilege in this. I consider my current work environment and how disproportionately white it is, a fact not lost on me particularly when the Criminal Justice System itself is disproportionately represented by black people. It raised for me the question of why this is? There is no doubt that the fundamentally racist issues faced by black people referenced in this book play a huge part in why black people are overrepresented in the Criminal Justice System. I have asked myself whether the same issues resulted in black people being underrepresented in organisations working within the Criminal Justice System? Issues such as structural racism, class, and white privilege surely all have a role.
Reni Eddo-Lodge urges us to listen and to challenge. When asked when she thinks we’ll get to an end point she responded ‘You can’t skip to the resolution without having the difficult, messy conversation first. We’re still in the hard bit’ (p. 213). For me, this book is part of that messy conversation. It is a starting point to really consider the issues raised by Reni Eddo-Lodge and how to be part of the movement for change. She states, ‘If you feel burdened by your unearned privilege, try to use it for something, and use it where it counts’ (p. 216).
This is the most important book I have read in many years. It seems more important the ever, with the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, that people educate themselves and develop their understanding of race relations, racism, and the structures that are in place within every aspect of society that support this. It would be wonderful to see this book on the GCSE syllabus, on college and university reading lists, in every school, hospital and prison library. In short, the more people who read this book the better (Eddo-Lodge, 2014).