3 ms·

No, the central message of the book is that in order to become less racist, you need to become less white. This directly ties racism to belonging to a particula

No, the central message of the book is that in order to become less racist, you need to become less white. This directly ties racism to belonging to a particular race, rather than making it a matter of individual choice and responsibility. And even if it is still a matter for the individual, the book asserts that racism is an inherently white trait. Again, that's racist. The book promotes far more racist ideas than it combats. Its popularity shows just how happy people are for the pendulum to swing the other way.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> No, the central message of the book is that in order to become less racist, you need to become less white. Assuming you have read the book and reached that conclusion based on the actual content, I'd be interested in specific support for that claim. Because while I haven't read much (again, just some of the freely-available preview on Google Books), that description conflicts with essentially every bit I have read, including the sentence I quoted from the introduction, which from reading the introduction seems to be the author’s direct statement of their motivation with the book. > And even if it is still a matter for the individual, the book asserts that racism is an inherently white trait. It seems to say it is a system into which Whites in the modern USA tend to be socialized into participating in in varying ways and degrees; it seems to be extremely repetitive on the point that it is a product of social context and not an inherent trait. I supposed it is possible that after the introduction the author pulls a 180° and reverses every word of the Introduction, but it seems a lot more likely that the people painting the books content as being a bunch of things that the Right has been setting up as strawmen to argue against for decades before the book was published in discussions of race are just setting up those same strawmen again instead of engaging with the content of the book.
- gentleman11 6y ago
  > Being seen racially is a common trigger of white fragility, and thus, to build our stamina, white people must face the first challenge: naming our race. Outside the context of this discussion, I don’t think a reader could decide whether quotes like this are from a left wing anti-racism book, or a neo-Nazi pseudo intellectual More troublesome quotes below Why only whites can be racist: > When I say that only whites can be racist, I mean that in the United States, only whites have the collective social and institutional power and privilege over people of color. People of color do not have this power and privilege over white people. Attributing all cultural traits to race, and then labeling everybody based on their race > Whiteness rests upon a foundational premise: the definition of whites as the norm or standard for human, and people of color as a deviation from that norm.
  - Thorentis 6y ago
    I'm sure if you asked the author "so you're saying that racism only exists when you have power over somebody?" they would reply simultaneously "of course not, thoughts can be racist too" and "but all white people have power over black people because of the fact they are white". The whole thing is self-defeating, and it is a tragic indictment on the state of intellectualism and academia, that a book like this can be so widely praised.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> No, the central message of the book is that in order to become less racist, you need to become less white. Assuming you have read the book and reached that conclusion based on the actual content, I'd be interested in specific support for that claim. Because while I haven't read much (again, just some of the freely-available preview on Google Books), that description conflicts with essentially every bit I have read, including the sentence I quoted from the introduction, which from reading the introduction seems to be the author’s direct statement of their motivation with the book. > And even if it is still a matter for the individual, the book asserts that racism is an inherently white trait. It seems to say it is a system into which Whites in the modern USA tend to be socialized into participating in in varying ways and degrees; it seems to be extremely repetitive on the point that it is a product of social context and not an inherent trait. I supposed it is possible that after the introduction the author pulls a 180° and reverses every word of the Introduction, but it seems a lot more likely that the people painting the books content as being a bunch of things that the Right has been setting up as strawmen to argue against for decades before the book was published in discussions of race are just setting up those same strawmen again instead of engaging with the content of the book.

gentleman11 6y ago
> Being seen racially is a common trigger of white fragility, and thus, to build our stamina, white people must face the first challenge: naming our race. Outside the context of this discussion, I don’t think a reader could decide whether quotes like this are from a left wing anti-racism book, or a neo-Nazi pseudo intellectual More troublesome quotes below Why only whites can be racist: > When I say that only whites can be racist, I mean that in the United States, only whites have the collective social and institutional power and privilege over people of color. People of color do not have this power and privilege over white people. Attributing all cultural traits to race, and then labeling everybody based on their race > Whiteness rests upon a foundational premise: the definition of whites as the norm or standard for human, and people of color as a deviation from that norm.
- Thorentis 6y ago
  I'm sure if you asked the author "so you're saying that racism only exists when you have power over somebody?" they would reply simultaneously "of course not, thoughts can be racist too" and "but all white people have power over black people because of the fact they are white". The whole thing is self-defeating, and it is a tragic indictment on the state of intellectualism and academia, that a book like this can be so widely praised.