Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge

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It is not easy to respond to this book, clearly I have to begin by accepting my own White privilege and watch myself to avoid the racial equivalent of “manplaining”.

The major point is that being “colour-blind” functions to uphold the status quo, as Reni puts it

“Not seeing race does little to deconstruct racist structures or materially improve the conditions which people of colour are subject to daily. In order to dismantle unjust, racist structures, we must see race. We must see who benefits from their race, who is disproportionately impacted by negative steretypes about their race, and to who power and privilege is bestowed upon – earned or not – because of their race, their class, and their gender. Seeing race is essential to changing the system.”

Reni also notes that “I have to be honest with myself. When I write as an outsider, I am also an insider in so many ways. I am university-educated, able-bodied, and I speak and write in ways very similar to those I criticise. I walk and talk like them, and part of that is why I am taken seriously. As I write about shattering perspectives and disrupting faux objectivity, I have to remember that there are factors in my life that bolster my voice above others.”

Reni wrestles with intersectionality – different “minority” groups can find themselves in situations of competition, and for example as a women of colour Reni find herself challenged by some Feminists who want her to sign up to a universal female experience and refute any difference between women of colour and white women – the experience of people of colour within the LGBT+ community is an equally sorry story. (I put minority in speak-marks because of course women are not a numerically minority group, nor are people of colour once you look to a global scale).

One of the personal ‘take aways’ (if you will excuse that horrid phrase) from this book was the political/societal importance of coming out – Reni reflects on the ways that people make assumptions because as a women of colour they look at her and “see” someone “different” whereas as a white man people might not “see” my sexuality. It is possible, and often tempting, to operate in the closet – but allowing people to stay within their default hetronormative assumptions is in fact to collude with oppression.