The Opposition…

White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide

Carol Anderson

Discussion: 2018-Oct-Nov-Dec

Why we're reading this: October 19, 2017
October 1, 2018
[close] October 19, 2017
October 1, 2018

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Jul 03, 2020 Alex rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2020-present, political, on-my-bookshelf, sociology

This was a hard read.

Not just because of the horrific, enraging content, but because it forces you to reckon with what history you've been taught. In seventh grade Texas History, eighth grade American History, college history, and even Texas and American government, never are these topics touched upon. Sure, you might read a little about the Civil Rights Movement. You know the dates of when they were passed, you know the titles of court cases like Brown vs Board. You go along with the assumption This was a hard read.

Not just because of the horrific, enraging content, but because it forces you to reckon with what history you've been taught. In seventh grade Texas History, eighth grade American History, college history, and even Texas and American government, never are these topics touched upon. Sure, you might read a little about the Civil Rights Movement. You know the dates of when they were passed, you know the titles of court cases like Brown vs Board. You go along with the assumption that "wow, that sure was horrible, but we took steps to fix it and look where we are now!"

White Rage paints a very different picture.

And yes, I've seen comments that that's a very polarizing title, but I think it's a very accurate, apt title. There is no retaliatory rage like white rage, in that every single, tiny step taken to give Black people more rights, or to equalize the playing field, is immediately mocked, delegitimized, and torn apart but any means necessary.

In a conversational retelling of Black history since the beginning of Reconstruction, this book will walk you through each and every attempt at rolling back every landmark case that Black people have won. The blasé way Lincoln and Johnson handled Reconstruction, the begrudging win of the Civil Rights Act. The lengths white people have gone to, up to and including withholding education for their white children, just so Black children are unable to go to school.

It's insanity. Racism is so woven into our democracy and history that it would be impossible to extricate the two. Nowhere in my history classes was this mentioned, and to be frank, I'm almost in a state of shell shock after reading it.

My only criticism of the book is that, since I didn't have a lot of historical context on a lot of the cases and laws described, I did have to go searching for some of them. It is self-described as a primer, so I don't mind too much, but it did interrupt the flow of the book sometimes.

Even so, the book offers an in-depth look at the origins of concepts I grew up with but never had to think about or acknowledge. If there's one book you read this year, especially with everything going on in the world right now, please read this one. ...more

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