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oyceter(full title: "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?" and Other Conversations about Race: A Psychologist Explains the Development of Racial Identity)
I should have written this up a long, long time ago. Instead, I procrastinated, and now you all are going to get a short write-up dredged from the depths of my poor memory instead of a nice, long meaty review.
I am not going to be rational about this book. I read it in the aftermath of the Great Cultural Appropriation of DOOM and in the middle of making a post on Race and PotC2. This is an Important Book to me, since it came at the right time to shape how I thought about race and racism. It gave me a vocabulary for concepts that hadn't yet solidified in my head; by doing so, it gave those concepts a specific shape. I can't even begin to say how much just that helped.
Tatum didn't invent the definitions of her terms and she didn't invent the terms themselves, but she made them accessible to me. I learned about aversive racism, racism = prejudice + power, reverse racism and why it's not that accurate to call it racism (not the same amount of power involved). She gave me the moving walkway analogy: Racism is so pervasive in society that it's like a backward-moving walkway. If you don't do anything, you're moving backwards (aka, you're as racist as the rest of society). Very racist people actively walk backwards. You can walk forwards, but if it isn't at a rate that's faster than the backwards-moving walkway, you can still be contributing to the overall racism in society. To be actively anti-racist, you have to walk at a rate faster than the walkway, and this takes a lot of effort.
If Tatum had just given me these tools to think about race and racism, that would have been more than enough. But she also brought in her own compassionate point of view. She's very straightfoward with those who ask loaded questions or come in feeling entitled or people who just haven't thought that much about racism, but she also takes the time to answer their questions kindly as well. And I found for all the crap that she must have had to put up with (I figure she is probably getting a lot more pointy questions than she writes up), she's still patient and compassionate.
The book's subtitle is about the development of racial identity, but the book itself addresses more than that, because one's racial identity ties so firmly into societal notions of race and racism.
I particularly like that she has sections of the book dedicated to specific minorities; there's not much, since she says that would be huge, but the bit on Asian Americans addresses the problems of the "model minority" myth and etc. There's a chapter on the formation of white identity, how to educate white children on racial identity, and another very helpful chapter on affirmative action. Finally, she addresses how to form coalitions and get allies, how to engage in the issue and start being anti-racist.
I'm not summarizing this well, but this book is excellent. It was an anchor for me during those crazy debates online, and will continue to be for quite some time.
Links:
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minnow1212's review
I should have written this up a long, long time ago. Instead, I procrastinated, and now you all are going to get a short write-up dredged from the depths of my poor memory instead of a nice, long meaty review.
I am not going to be rational about this book. I read it in the aftermath of the Great Cultural Appropriation of DOOM and in the middle of making a post on Race and PotC2. This is an Important Book to me, since it came at the right time to shape how I thought about race and racism. It gave me a vocabulary for concepts that hadn't yet solidified in my head; by doing so, it gave those concepts a specific shape. I can't even begin to say how much just that helped.
Tatum didn't invent the definitions of her terms and she didn't invent the terms themselves, but she made them accessible to me. I learned about aversive racism, racism = prejudice + power, reverse racism and why it's not that accurate to call it racism (not the same amount of power involved). She gave me the moving walkway analogy: Racism is so pervasive in society that it's like a backward-moving walkway. If you don't do anything, you're moving backwards (aka, you're as racist as the rest of society). Very racist people actively walk backwards. You can walk forwards, but if it isn't at a rate that's faster than the backwards-moving walkway, you can still be contributing to the overall racism in society. To be actively anti-racist, you have to walk at a rate faster than the walkway, and this takes a lot of effort.
If Tatum had just given me these tools to think about race and racism, that would have been more than enough. But she also brought in her own compassionate point of view. She's very straightfoward with those who ask loaded questions or come in feeling entitled or people who just haven't thought that much about racism, but she also takes the time to answer their questions kindly as well. And I found for all the crap that she must have had to put up with (I figure she is probably getting a lot more pointy questions than she writes up), she's still patient and compassionate.
The book's subtitle is about the development of racial identity, but the book itself addresses more than that, because one's racial identity ties so firmly into societal notions of race and racism.
I particularly like that she has sections of the book dedicated to specific minorities; there's not much, since she says that would be huge, but the bit on Asian Americans addresses the problems of the "model minority" myth and etc. There's a chapter on the formation of white identity, how to educate white children on racial identity, and another very helpful chapter on affirmative action. Finally, she addresses how to form coalitions and get allies, how to engage in the issue and start being anti-racist.
I'm not summarizing this well, but this book is excellent. It was an anchor for me during those crazy debates online, and will continue to be for quite some time.
Links:
-
minnow1212's review
(no subject)
Wed, Jan. 10th, 2007 07:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Wed, Jan. 10th, 2007 07:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Wed, Jan. 10th, 2007 09:17 pm (UTC)