This book first came on my radar a little less than a year ago, now, when a friend posted on Facebook that it was the thing to read to understand the oppression of people of color. I think I understood the issue relatively well, but also pushed back against some of the rhetoric used by the movement, and so felt that I was still missing something.
I recall an incident earlier this year (last year?) when a certain "match" told me that I needed to "get empathy" and "give a shit about others." Now I think she was making some unfair assumptions and we hadn't met in person and we were talking about the homeless and their presumptive lack of knowledge about the temporary closure of our local library, but that has given me a certain chip on my shoulder. Don't f***ing tell someone that they don't give a s*** about others when you can't see what's in their heart.
Pardon my language. Moving on, I can see I've already started this review on an un-publishable note, but it's relevant, I think, to the chapter about people taking umbrage over being called "racist." Now I get that. If people say "you're racist," I used to tell them, no way! Now I just say, yeah, but I'm working on that. Better to acknowledge those tiny microaggressions (i.e. checking my pocket for my wallet after standing in a crowded El car) than to deny any kind of imperfection in my soul and defend my moral righteousness. Only last summer did it feel safe to acknowledge one's own internalized racism.
And so two things first about this book: (1) it was published in 2018, and this issue is extremely volatile at the moment (and has been for the past decade), and while I don't think a great deal has changed, there has been notable progress on certain issues; (2) it is critic-proof. One cannot criticize its ideas, because they have been proven with verifiable data and statistics, as well as lived experience. There are many lessons to take out of this book. In fact, each chapter is designed as a kind of lesson. The first one is this: do not deny people their lived experience.
If you are white, do not minimize the experiences of people of color. If you are a person of color, and you haven't experienced the types of oppression outlined in this text, still, do not minimize the experiences of other people of color. Reading this, however, it seems hard to imagine a person of color never experiencing discrimination (or cultural opprobrium) with respect to issues such as affirmative action, police brutality, educational infrastructure, racist slang/pejoratives, "the model minority," or white privilege generally.
***
Because of the nature of this book, it may be useful to consider my own experiences, to "check my privilege," so to speak. Do I feel that I have benefited from white privilege? Yes and No. Yes, in my two experiences being pulled over, when I could have been cited for more than mere speeding, when I was let off with a warning. Yes. And those experiences alone, had they gone the other way, might have greatly exacerbated my struggles in life. Yes, in the educational element, where my parents had the privilege of deciding whether to send me to public school or Catholic school, or later boarding school, or later paid for my undergraduate education. Now later I would take out loans for law school, and that would be enough to taste some semblance of economic oppression. Granted, I actually believe that I would be in a better position if I had gone to public school through it all. Because the public schools in our area (i.e. New Trier township) were excellent. And because private school sheltered me from the struggles of those that had no other option. I might have tried harder. The inevitable necessity of earning a livelihood in a harsh capitalist world might have been more apparent. Nobody ever told me it was going to be very hard for me to find a job until my Property professor pointed at my 3.14 GPA and said that.
I could have done anything, and this book argues that the promise of America, that all people, including people of color, can do anything, is a lie. In order to be successful as a person of color, one has to be extraordinary. Yet could I really do anything? Am I attractive enough to get hired? Do my mental health struggles constitute a flaw? Do I have the drive, the energy of other people? Am I smart enough, or just "fake smart?" Do I dress well enough, is my hair right, do they want someone younger, do they chafe at hiring an older person for entry-level compensation?
While I may face certain barriers, people of color must face these same barriers, and many more. I have been on food stamps and Medicaid as a thirty-year-old. I lived with three other roommates in a three-bedroom apartment, to survive. Later, when I only had two roommates, one described an experience of being stuck outside of a Chase ATM. I said, "Why didn't you just knock?" He said, "Because I'm black." Granted, I don't see how he couldn't get in when the person inside exited, would hold the door for him, but that hesitancy to knock, by itself, was a badge of internalized racism that didn't occur to me.
Maybe this is because I was taught to be color-blind. Treat all people of color the same way I would treat anyone else. In the past couple of years, the culture has signaled that this is the wrong approach--that we should see color, that we should be more sensitive to the struggles faced by people of color.
Last year sometime, a newer friend made a long Instagram story post talking about If Beale Street Could Talk and the general trend in "black cinema" to portray situations of trauma. Now then, I enjoyed the film, found it quite beautiful at times, but I agreed with him. Yet I took it a step further and addressed his comments about humor, saying that movies like Friday were more popular in the late 90's/early 2000's, but now "black cinema" is geared towards "message movies" that win awards (i.e. 12 Years a Slave and Moonlight). He said a lot more movies like that came out because winning the award was proof that movies on the Black experience can bring in revenue and are important. Pertinently he wrote, "We just want our experiences to be seen and unfortunately winning awards and bringing in money is the only way to prove that we deserve that platform." After that, things took a turn, when I asked if he had seen Chi-raq. He said no, and I told him he should, and that I felt it addressed trauma in a way that he was hoping, with some absurdist humor. He asked what made me so qualified about critiquing or knowing what Black trauma is, or how well it's captured. And I got defensive, saying I was a former film critic, and that I worked on the south side in drug and gang-house enforcement in 2014 and 2015, when shooting deaths were out of control, when we were the murder capital of the world. He said that was only one small section of black culture as a whole, and that had been a job, compared to a lived experience, or even having numerous black friends and actually listening to their varied experiences--you can't begin to understand black art if you don't have a solid grasp on black life/culture. I felt then that the tension had lessened, and I asked if he had read The Sellout, and recommended it, saying I would love to know what he thought of it.
That was one lesson. Another involved another new friend who had casually mentioned that his father was in Vietnam, and I expressed disbelief. My father was part of that war and he was 74 and I thought basically the median age for veterans of it. Maybe 68-year-olds would represent the youngest veterans. His dad was about 62, at that moment in the conversation. He said it was some racist shit that I just assumed his dad would be twenty years older than him and couldn't possibly have been a part of that war. I said no, he was five years younger than me, and if his dad was born in 1958 or whatever, he would had to have gotten in at the very end, when he was very young. Which in fact had been the case, and he had also passed away a couple years earlier, so maybe he would be 64 now. A huge knot in my chest had formed and I told him I saw how I was wrong, and I was sorry to have made that assumption. We moved on, but I learned that, even if I wasn't making that blanket assumption about black parenthood, it could easily come off that way, and this was one of those perpetuated stereotypes that I was feeding into. I may not have intended to hurt, but the hurt was felt nonetheless, and could have been interpreted as a microaggression.
Perhaps these incidents illustrate the difficulty of white people talking to black people about race: if I say that I understand, and I am shown to be compromised in my thinking, it hurts to know that I still don't get it, and that I am not yet a strong ally at this juncture. There is a difference between being a racist and being subject to racist thinking, yet it felt too close for my own comfort. Moreover, I made this all about me. What of the comfort of people of color?
Even writing that, I still want to push back on that, I still want to say that the color-blind approach is the right one, yet I know with respect to black cinema, for one example, a color-blind approach resumes the status quo, and fades back into the White Supremacy of Hollywood, where black people are reduced to supporting roles and "token" stereotypes, rather than leading roles and stories about their own experience.
***
Of course, Black Panther, released around the same time as this book, was a watershed moment in black cinema. As a white person, I feel uncomfortable making any kind of assertion in this regard, but that seems relatively accurate. There was also the #OscarsSoWhite movement, which resulted in Chris Rock hosting perhaps to lessen tension, and later Kevin Hart, before it became more about homophobia than racism, and hosts have become a thing of the past, making this year's ceremony extremely boring. (And now there will be no Golden Globes, apparently.) There were more black nominees this year, but two front-runners were snubbed. Twitter, apparently, blew up. Black Panther may have shown that black cinema can branch out into new territory--i.e. the mega-blockbuster superhero action movie--but this is only three years ago and it remains to be seen whether similar ambitious efforts (apart from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever) will be produced. I do know for certain that there are a few black filmmakers--Barry Jenkins, Steve McQueen, Ryan Coogler--that have entered the cultural vanguard. And I would not be surprised if they had more trouble obtaining financing than white directors with similar (or lesser) achievements. But we don't hear about it if they don't talk about it, and when they talk about it, there are a million white people saying they are complaining or just assuming that they deserve special treatment. This is part of the problem the book seeks to address.
I can see I've gone off on massive tangents, and I should address the book itself. Did I enjoy reading it? Not always. Was I hate-reading it? No, but sometimes it felt that way. Did I push back against some of its pronouncements? Yes. Do I view it, under the totality of circumstances, as accurate? Yes.
There is one critique I can make, and it is that the people who will read this book are not the people that we want to read this book. One might water it down to "preaching to the choir," but it is not directed at the choir (i.e. "SJWs"), it is directed at the people that don't think they're racist but probably are. The people that read this book are like me--we are trying to be better--yet we already know so much of what is in this book, for the conversations that have been happening with increasing frequency in the culture.
Every instance of police brutality that is publicized is another opportunity for that conversation. And there have been more than a few opportunities since 2018. Recently, the MLB moved their All-Star game from Atlanta, GA in protest of a new voter suppression law passed by that state. This book does not address the NBA's censure of Donald Sterling and his lifetime ban though that happened in 2014. The NFL may have work to do, but it seems to be trying, though not enough; the NBA and the MLB are recognizing the value in being on the right side of history. It just makes better business sense too, at this point, and perhaps that is one of the many small steps our society is making towards racial equality (capitalism wins!).
Still, even if I did not think this was a perfect book, even if it won't reach any hardcore racist minds, even if it made me a little angry at times, many of these chapters are not particularly controversial and are accepted as fact. The hardest parts of the book are those that Oluo acknowledges as being controversial--particularly on cultural appropriation and microaggressions.
Really, this could be a book-length review, addressing every assertion made in the text, but that would be insane. I should just write my own book called So You Really Want to Know What I Think about Race? I do think the best parts of the book are also the hardest, those times when Oluo provides the counterpoints herself, addressing the alternative perspective. Perhaps she is particularly well-suited as an LGBTQ+ mixed-race POC to write the chapter on Intersectionality.
Allow me to add that this book can be updated (or maybe another one could be written in 10 years, or 20 years), and that a paragraph or two on Mayor Lori Lightfoot in Chapter 5 might be suitable. [Lengthy political comments expurgated in the interest of economy.] Now, she is routinely criticized as an ineffective leader. I, for one, hope to see her do something unprecedented as Mayor--take ownership over failures--and articulate specific steps forward that she will be taking, acknowledging the reasons why people do not think she should be re-elected. I do think that would be effective.
Even that word, though, "articulate," can be seen as a microaggression, in a different context. I never felt this was a bad thing to be seen as articulate, but Oluo points out that it presumes that most people of color are not articulate. (Obviously I am not using it as an adjective above.) I asked a Latinx friend about this and they said they did not take that personally, because English was their second language. If they went to their native country, they would not be told they were surprisingly articulate. It would sound insulting, or at least stupid. Frankly, I don't know anyone that would say something like this--I reserve the use of "articulate" to precocious children--but I am sure that if I were a person of color, I would have heard it a few times, at least.
***
I can sense now that this is a different sort of book to review, because I think it requires the critic to engage with how these ideas have played out in their own experience. I cannot make any criticisms except to say that sometimes, the text gets repetitive. This is because of how the book is styled, almost as a "how to" guide. There are distinct bullet points to convey the main ideas of each chapter. This book could have been more than that, but it is written for the average reader. Yet it must do this. It must stop to explain exactly, for example, what affirmative action is (without digging into the nitty-gritty case law of Grutter and Gratz). It must take a step back and explain exactly what "white privilege" means (many of us have been considering this for the past five years). So it's not as though these conversations are over and done, but the book is designed for people that want to have these conversations, or want to destroy systemic racism. White supremacists themselves are highly unlikely to read it, until they have a personal experience to give them pause. Most "racists" nowadays, are "trolls." They aren't part of the KKK necessarily, but they won't use their real name online. They are set in their thinking and a book is not going to change it, particularly if they have zero desire to check it out--there needs to be an action that leads them to finding the book. Perhaps a book of fiction, a story about someone like them, might "deceive" them into opening their minds. Perhaps a movie, like American History X, for example.
But what of the people that say they are open-minded, they are not racist, and they still implicitly endorse racial bias--that is, there are black people, and then there are thugs. Those that question why anyone would wear their pants below their waistline may have a point, particularly when one learns the history of what it means to wear pants in that fashion. In court, certain judges will take far less kindly to defendants that do not "respect" their courtroom, to the point that I have seen a typed placard at the defendant's stand essentially telling people that if they wear their pants like this, it means they are a punk in jail. Of course there is also a culture of homophobia in hip-hop--or rather, there was. Kanye West spoke out about it in 2005, and at the time I felt it rather brave, and certainly things have changed, with plenty of LGBTQ+ artists in formerly "rough" spaces. To be sure there is still plenty of homophobia in the culture, and sometimes we just want to dress "punk" without it defining our orientation or affiliation. Query whether dress is meant to intimidate, and why that intimidation may also be a survival mechanism. Does anyone know what it is like to be in a gang, unless they have been in a gang themselves, to be ensconced in that insularity, rather than observing from the outside? They are family, because the traditional family has failed them, in some way. It is a community, and not all gangs are bad, but yes, most of the killings that made this city the murder capital of the world were gang-related, often over drugs, guns, territory, or "sending a message" to a rival gang. Regardless, most people do not want to venture into gang territory to have a conversation about race (just as many would not want to go to the deep south to do the same) and while the book does acknowledge some more difficult and nuanced conversations, it does not address gangs, which I think could have its own chapter (though I can see how that would get the book "into the weeds," so to speak). Maybe this is just a small sliver of black culture, and though the school-to-prison pipeline is explored, the question of gang eradication is reserved, perhaps because that goal might come out of misbegotten motives.
I haven't excerpted anything from this book, and that feels wrong, but I hope that I have adequately explored its ideas. A brief comment on the microaggressions listed on pages 170-171. I understand the idea of microaggressions--that one, by itself, may be harmless--but compounded as they are on a daily basis, ultimately may end up destroying notions of one's own self-worth. But I just have to say, the microaggressions tossed about are mostly insane:
"'Are you an affirmative action hire?'
'Wow, you speak English really well.'
'You aren't like other black people.'
'I thought Asian people eat a lot of rice.'
'Why do black people give their kids such funny names?'
'That's so ghetto.'
'Is that your real hair? Can I touch it?'
'You listen to opera? I thought you were black.'
'Wow, you're so articulate.'
'Your name is too difficult for me. Do you have a nickname?'
'Where are you from? No...I mean, where are your parents from? I mean...where is your name from?'
'Is the baby-daddy in the picture?'
'You have really big eyes for an Asian person.'
'Why are you complaining? I thought Chinese people loved homework.'" (170-171)
And I'm sorry, but that last one is hilarious, depending on context. Most of these things are just extremely tactless things said by stupid people. Unfortunately, there are millions upon millions of stupid people in this country (and we are finding more evidence of that every day). That said, I do not think it is a microaggression to ask for a nickname, plenty of people with "exotic" names often say, "just call me ____," anticipating the difficulty. Of course saying "are you the maid?" is a perfect example of a microaggression. But saying "your accent is adorable," while "cloaked" in a compliment (but accents are adorable), when English is their second-language, saying they speak English very well, how is that a back-handed compliment?
There is a special emphasis on anti-Asian racism particularly in the model minority chapter, and that is extremely prescient, for reasons we couldn't entirely anticipate in 2018, further confirmed by the killings in Atlanta a couple months ago. But while there is an emphasis on black and brown people, I just do not think there is nearly as much on brown people. I believe a Latinx person needs to write a similar book, and that it would place heavy emphasis on the problem of undocumented immigration and status.
Cultural appropriation is one of the thorniest chapters in this book, by Oluo's own acknowledgement, and her analysis is sharp and reasonable. Yet while she makes passing reference to "bad Halloween costumes," she centers on the example of the white rapper, which yes clearly is a fair example of appropriation (if only because saying white classic rock musicians stole the blues from black people is too far in the past, and a less obvious imitation), the prevalence of white rappers is overstated.
"That 'legitimacy' bestowed by whiteness actually changed the definition of rap for the American culture. When the most popular rappers in the country are white rappers doing a decent impersonation of black master rappers, what kids see as legitimate rap changes. What they aspire to changes. Whom they give their money to changes. When these same white rappers are given Grammys for their attempts, over more talented black rappers, it makes it harder for rap by black artists to be accepted by mainstream culture--because it sounds different than what they've come to know as 'good rap.'
And in all of this, the music that we see on television and hear on our radio is further divorced from the struggle and triumph that inspired it from Africa, through slavery, and through today. The art form that black Americans have relied upon for generations is no longer theirs. While the struggle remains." (148-149)
Is this just about Eminem? Or isn't Post Malone white too, and Action Bronson? Matisyahu? Basically I do not think white people have taken over hip-hop, and I think that Eminem is respected (or was respected, at least, in the early 2000s) as a legitimate rapper by all races. His "whiteness" didn't make him legitimate, his talent earned respect. I think I'm missing the point, but there is a big difference between putting on blackface and performing one's own poetry with rhythm and flow. One is outlandishly racist, and the argument against the other is that it is not "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery," but rather, "you are taking something that is mine and stripping it of its intrinsic value, and in doing so, taking away opportunities and remuneration from the community that made it." Oluo does not aim to condemn or absolve the rap aspirations of white people, and she is making a point. She is not saying these opportunities shouldn't be open to white people, but she is advising against colonizing the scene.
Another argument could be made that there is good appropriation and bad appropriation, but the word appropriation itself is problematic. Art is appropriated endlessly. That is all art is--building on the work of the artists that came before. We adapt and we evolve. And there is a difference between "stealing" and "building." Stealing is always bad, but I think building is only bad if it doesn't include anyone from the community responsible for laying its foundations.
These are thorny and controversial matters, and this book offers a straightforward dissection of a multitude of racial issues. It encourages difficult conversations, and in the end it must start from the individual, from the ground up, in these very conversations, to build a national consensus. And I think that is happening, at least in the more urbane regions of this country.
Still, as white people, what do we do? I watched Malcolm X recently and there is a scene where a white girl comes up to him, attempting to express empathy, asking what she can do to help. He responds, "nothing." It's a great scene. There is a corollary here, but it is re-framed as virtue signaling:
"The more that I write about race, the more I've been surrounded by this talk disguised as action, From the white men using my Facebook and Twitter feeds as their own virtue signaling playground, to the white women sending me five-paragraph-long emails letting me know how the racial oppression of people of color makes them feel personally--I've seen how addicted people can get to the satisfaction of knowing they are saying all the right things, that they are having 'deep conversations'--so addicted that it becomes the end-all and be-all of their racial justice goals." (227)
I get this all too well. We want to be seen as being on the right side of history, but what are we actually doing about it? I like to think a million small things are being done every day, and that they have been building, and maybe Generation Z, or whatever comes after, will finally to put a stop to at least a few of the incredibly dumb racist actions of their forbears. There is little we can do except stand up to oppression when we see it - and we like to think we would do this for friends that we see getting picked on - that, or engage in the political process to pass meaningful legislation.
This is an angry book and it will likely pique almost all readers, regardless of race. The question is who will seek it out? Many white people sought out this book, and others like it last year, and just as quickly forgot about them, when they couldn't get them from a bookstore for some pandemic-related reason. I am vehemently against the term "woke" but people wanted to be that. I'd rather people be conscientious about their words and actions. I read it so that I could learn and engage with its ideas through writing about it. I learned that far too many people want to touch hair, and do so without asking. And perhaps I've engaged with it in a racist, back-handed manner, but I'm trying to be real about my own experiences, too. I do believe, at the end of the day, that younger people are recognizing these issues, and the wrong side of history will ultimately bend towards virtue with each successive generation. Big, structural, immediate change is great, and I want it - but experience shows that change happens slowly, over time. It is just shameful that after 400 years of black oppression in America, it still hasn't been long enough.
