I have read parts of four non-fiction books on the subject of working against systemic racism, and this one is the most thorough in laying out the multiple layers of racism and then being very prescriptive about how to approach pushing back against them. When everyone is talking about building a scaffolding upon which to combat a deep and wide problem in our country and in the world, it is very useful to have a playbook, and that is what this feels like to me.
The author divulges a lot about his own process of breaking down his own racism. I think it is easy to forget that we all live within this racist structure, no matter the color of our skin, and so just as women can feed directly into the patriarchy, people of color can hold the same prejudices as white people do. The structure oppresses from without and from within, and he really breaks it down into the component parts and helps build up ways to think about and combat and to a certain extent to talk about how to be an advocate for an antiracist change in the world. Read once, read twice, read with chicken soup and rice. It is worth savoring and thinking deeply about.
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