Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race

paperback

Published Aug. 19, 2018 by Bloomsbury Publishing.

ISBN:: 978-1-4088-7058-7

(2 reviews)

In 2014, award-winning journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge wrote on her blog about her frustration with the way that discussions of race and racism in Britain were being led by those who weren't affected by it. Her words hit a nerve. The post went viral and comments flooded in from others desperate to speak up about their own experiences. Galvanised, she decided to dig into the source of these feelings. Exploring issues from eradicated black history to the inextricable link between class and race, Reni Eddo-Lodge has written a searing, illuminating, absolutely necessary examination of what it is to be a person of colour in Britain today --

8 editions

wrul (pre‐2023) reviewed Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge

broadly, fine

3 stars

Content warning racism

Truly, I was content to miss Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race, until someone included it in this month’s home library service bag. I appreciated the opportunity to read exactly what Eddo‐Lodge had had to say, although the book mainly echoes things that countless others already had.

The presentation is a hybrid of personal essay and long‐form journalism, which is fine. The standard of writing wobbles a bit, but it’s never inadequate. As a treatment of race and racism, it takes on a soft, popular quality — also fine.

Even necessary. The literature needed it, these sorts of things in this kind of combination. Five stars for canon‐readiness, though that says far more about public discourse of the time than any individual contribution.

There is an underlying sense of urgency siphoning precedence. The book in different respects dilutes and fortifies the blog post from which it begins.

While the extremely simple models of structural racism and white privilege that Eddo‐Lodge sketches out probably leave chunks of genuinely troublesome misconception among the assumptions of those freshest to methodically developing these concepts, presumably such an approach has plenty to offer overall.

Yet there is danger in the avoidance of delving into racism’s construction, and leaning too heavily on summation of its various façades and foyers. This becomes especially evident when Eddo‐Lodge braves a telephone call with Nick Griffin, former leader of the far‐right British National Party. Across the transcript, each participant holds a fairly cogent but almost completely unrelated interview (pp. 123–129). Again — Eddo‐Lodge’s approach to this delicate, treacherous engagement (through which Griffin learns her private contact details) — absolutely fine! Griffin’s — ghastly. Still, it is easy enough to imagine a reader (a variety of readers!) picking up this title, thirsty for an explanatory model of racialised politics, only to find in Griffin’s slime their charismatic first.

Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race is not a book of why is racism. That’s fine! It is more a book of racism is why, and racism is here, and racism is suffocating us.

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

Review of "Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race" on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Overall this book is excellent. Especially it's focus on intersectionality makes it a strong recommendation for me. Even to someone who doesn't want to read the entire book, the parts about White Privilege (Part 2) and the intersection with feminism (Part 5) are worth a read by themselves.

I found parts of it about history and more recent events hard to contextualise since I've never lived in the UK and probably lack the knowledge of many locations and events that have't made it into international media coverage.

The interview with Nick Griffin is a problematic point of this book since, while deconstructing most of his racist ideas, it glosses over his clearly anti-semitic remarks. Those should have at least been acknowledged as such. By not doing that, his anti-semitism is given an unchallenged platform through this book. An embarrassing oversight, especially since I've read an already revised edition with even …

Overall this book is excellent. Especially it's focus on intersectionality makes it a strong recommendation for me. Even to someone who doesn't want to read the entire book, the parts about White Privilege (Part 2) and the intersection with feminism (Part 5) are worth a read by themselves.

I found parts of it about history and more recent events hard to contextualise since I've never lived in the UK and probably lack the knowledge of many locations and events that have't made it into international media coverage.

The interview with Nick Griffin is a problematic point of this book since, while deconstructing most of his racist ideas, it glosses over his clearly anti-semitic remarks. Those should have at least been acknowledged as such. By not doing that, his anti-semitism is given an unchallenged platform through this book. An embarrassing oversight, especially since I've read an already revised edition with even an entirely nw chapter. Still the interview was left as-is.