This is refreshing in its lack of sugar-coating. Of course, that will put many people off, and raise defensive hackles, but a little dose of rage may have its benefits. It’s less a guidebook of what to do differently than a very clear-eyed account of the various ways that white women manifest racism (on the totally reasonable understanding that it’s our job to figure out how to address it). One of the particularly powerful insights in the book is that white women are also awful towards each other (I was reading it at the same time as reading an essay on white supremacy culture, and it really helped everything click into place in my brain), and that we need to learn to work together.
This is not the book to give someone who is just starting to warm up to the idea of antiracist work, unless it’s someone self-aware enough to be willing to recognize how their own defensiveness mirrors those of the women Jackson and Rao interact with. But it might be just the thing for the many white people who dutifully read Kendi or Oluo in the summer of 2020 and are now vocally proclaiming how opposed to racism they are, while continuing to be toxic to various people of color they encounter.
Kasia Reads 