Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race by Reni Eddo-Lodge
Published: June 1st 2017 by Bloomsbury Circus
Genre: Non-fiction, Feminism, Race, Politics
Pages: 249

This book is based on a blog post the author wrote in 2014 that went viral. As bloggers know, there is only so much you can say in a blog post, and this is a topic where there is much to say. There’s history. A lot of history that’s been ignored for too many years and it’s about time it’s surfacing. And so she wrote this book.

It speaks from a point of view set in Europe, which is rare. We know of black American history more than any other black history. And we know of black American heroes, more than any other black heroes around the world.

For this to focus on Europe, especially Britain, it did something great for me, it brought it out of the American bubble. It hit a little closer to home and opened the world up for me. It’s not that I thought there was no black history in Europe, I just wasn’t educated on the topic in school. To be honest, we didn’t have any black history in school at all. Or Asian for that matter. Which I then and still have never sought out to learn more about.

This book taught me things I needed to know. It can teach many people things they need to know if they’re open to it. But I agree with the author. I am no longer talking to white people about race. I am not black, but I am ethnically half asian and I recognize the challenges. Being half is a challenge too, you might have a parent on one side that doesn’t recognize your struggle at all.

This book is vital for any parent of a half child. It’s vital for anyone trying to understand. It’s the comfort you need if you are struggling. It’s the truth that needs to be told over and over again, until society understands the underlying issues that comes with races. It’s a place to turn to when you are feeling hopeless and you can find people and stories between the pages and feel understood. And that to me, was one of the most important things. If you are feeling alone in the struggle, there’s this book, fighting alongside you.