Abstract
The Racial Healing Handbook, by Dr. Anneliese Singh, is a thoughtful and practical tool for anyone who wants to understand, identify, and challenge internalized influences of white supremacy and work toward healing and liberation. Comprised of both clearly written theoretical content and numerous exercises, this book is hands-on, practical, and user-friendly: an excellent resource for anyone who wants to deepen their understanding of—and ways to resist—a profoundly deleterious system of racial hierarchy. Singh is clearly focused on providing a resource that everyone can use to growth, heal, and commit/re-commit to racial healing and anti-racism work.
It is difficult to sufficiently emphasize the timeliness of this book. Given the elevated racist rhetoric, used for the sake of political gain, and divisive cultural disagreement about what actions constitute racism, a resource such as this—geared toward racial healing—is so incredibly beneficial. Readers will undoubtedly finish the book with a more concrete understanding of the large social structure of white supremacy and its manifestations in personal, interpersonal, relational, and communal racism. Further, The Racial Healing Handbook is a tool that can be used in any number of settings: classrooms, community groups, individual counseling, or on one’s own. Readers who engage in the activities provided in the book have much to gain.
Singh begins by outlining the three major assumptions underlying the content of this book: that racism is ubiquitous; that everyone—people of color and white people alike—is affected by the ubiquity of racism and white supremacy; and finally, that through personal and interpersonal work, people can work toward healing from racism. This approach to racial healing is developed through chapters that lean heavily on exercises geared toward helping readers understand, grieve, and interrupt racism in their lives on individual, relational, and community levels.
This book holds a unique place in the psychology literature. Theoretically, Singh draws on work by psychological scholars such as Derald Wing Sue and Janet Helms. However, a major strength of the Handbook is its seamless integration of literature from outside of psychology. For example, Singh brings in the work of historian Ibram X. Kendi whose scholarship helps to challenge commonly learned narratives about white supremacy in the United States. She also relies on scholarship on intersectionality to help readers to understand ways in which specific identity domains interact with race. Further, the introduction, written by longtime white anti-racism activist, Tim Wise, situates the book in context of a history of advocacy and starts readers off with an understanding that this is a book geared toward taking action.
Yet, the most valuable resource—the one that truly fuels the direction of this book—is the reader. While Singh offers historical, psychological, and scientific information that is so valuable, she has created a wealth of exercises and prompts that invite the reader to dive into this book honestly and authentically. It is through the personalization of the content that this book finds its strength. In fact, it seems impossible for someone to work through this book’s exercises without learning something about themselves. The Handbook gives its readers the tools and the space to explore their own learning about race, racism, and themselves in both a head-space and a deeply heart-felt space.
