Waking
Up White and Finding Myself in the Story of Race is a
book I tried to review after I read it in December and again after I led a
four-week discussion of it in February. I have over twenty pages of handwritten
notes on it and have flagged dozens of passages in the text. I’ve also spent
more time learning about myself from this book than I ever could have imagined yet
I couldn’t picture describing my experience reading it. The incidents in
Charlottesville this week forced me to write this review.
Waking
Up White tackles Debby Irving’s struggle to understand the racial
tensions in her community, her professional work, and her life. She was a
worrier who didn’t want to offend people, yet she could tell that her efforts
to stimulate diversity in her job as an arts administrator were a failure. She
was certain that as “a good person” she didn’t see color and “didn’t have a
racist bone” in her body. The more she tried to understand and “help” the more
confused she became. In the winter of 2009, at age forty-eight, she began
course work for a master’s degree in special education where a “Racial and
Cultural Identity” class offered what she thought would be tips that would help
her with her students of color, but it made her turn the lens on herself.
Irving’s struggle to understand race and racism had left
her upset and confused. “It turns out,
stumbling block number 1 was that I didn’t think I had a race so I never
thought to look within myself for answers. The way I understood it, race was
for other people, brown- and black-skinned people. Don’t get me wrong – if you
put a census form in my hand, I would know to check “white” or “Caucasian.”.
. . I thought white was the raceless
race – just plain, normal, the one against which all others were measured. What
I’ve learned is that thinking myself raceless allowed for a distorted frame of
reference built on faulty beliefs. For
instance, I used to believe:
- · Race is all about biological differences.
- · I can help people of color by teaching them to be more like me.
- · Racism is about bigots who make snarky comments and commit intentionally cruel acts against people of color.
- · Culture and ethnicity are only for people of other races and from other countries.
- · If the cause of racial inequity were understood, it would be solved by now.
Irving began educating herself and soon learned that “not
talking about race was a privilege available only to white people.” She also
learned that she couldn’t give away her privilege so she had to use it to
create change and that her own “Robin Hood Syndrome” of helping people in certain
ways actually disempowered them. She understood that her belief that the police
were there to protect her came from her mother’s words to her when she was a
child: “If you get lost or feel worried, just look for a policeman.” Now she understood that just five miles away,
black mothers in Boston were telling their children, “If you get stopped by the
police, keep your hands in plain sight so they don’t think you have a gun.” She
began wondering what else had shaped her beliefs.
This book offers historical research and examples along
with Irving’s own compelling story, but what sets Waking Up White apart from other books about race is that each
short chapter in the book ends with a question that makes the reader learn more
about his or her own story. I wrote fourteen hand-written legal pages answering
those questions and those words offer a more multifaceted portrait of my
experiences than any other exercise I’ve ever completed. After I contemplated
each answer, I was even more eager to return to the book and to learn more.
Listen to this 2015 National Public Radio interview to
hear about Irving’s light bulb moments beginning when she was five and wondering
what had happened to Native Americans through her times as a teacher trying
to help but often hindering her efforts. She discusses the GI Bill and how 98% of the money
for housing went to white families and how her eyes began opening to her own
privilege. Listen, if only for her statement “There is no neutral in racism.”
This is the single book that every American must read AND
it’s a book that will compel you to find others to read it so you can discuss
it with them. Ask your library, book store, religious institution, school, or
local newspaper to sponsor a discussion group. Our four-week discussion at
Flossmoor Community Church in Illinois had people from their thirties to their
nineties who’d grown up poor, rich, white, black, Latino, some with multiple
educational degrees and some with none, some in cities, some on farms, and we taught
each other. Whatever you believe or know, this book will stretch you.
Summing It Up: Every person living in America today needs
to read and talk about Waking Up White.
We all want to end racism and reading Waking
Up White is a first step toward that goal.
FYI: Best-selling author Jodi Picoult’s 2016 novel Small Great Things is inspired, in part,
by what she learned reading Waking Up
White. The Presbyterian Church, USA chose the book for their denomination
to read together in 2016. Many communities are selecting it for a
one-book-one-community reading project.
Rating:
5 stars for the importance of the topic and its impact on the reader
Category:
Five Stars, Nonfiction, Soul food, Super Nutrition, Book Club
Publication
date: January 9, 2014
Author
Website: http://www.debbyirving.com/
Interview
with the Author: http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2015/08/10/waking-up-white
What
Others are Saying:
"Debby Irving's powerful Waking Up White opens
a rare window on how white Americans are socialized. Irving's focus on the
mechanics of racism operating in just one life -- her own -- may lead white
readers to reconsider the roots of their own perspectives -- and their role in
dismantling old myths. Readers of color will no doubt find the view through
Irving's window fascinating, and telling." -- Van Jones, author, Rebuild The Dream, The Green Collar
Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems; Co-host, CNN
Crossfire
"I read Waking Up White in one sitting. To say I loved it is an understatement. It's such a raw, honest portrait ... Irving's experience on display - warts and all - will help white people, who haven't noticed the role systemic privilege has played in their lives, start to see the world in a new way." -- Jodi Picoult, author, The Storyteller, My Sister's Keeper
Irving's personal and moving tale takes us on an adventure to a world utterly new to her as she wakes up to the reality of how, without her knowledge or active pursuit, she lives in a society which is set up to reward her at the expense of people of color. I cannot imagine a more understandable and compelling invitation to learn about how racism lives on in our homes, communities, and nation. -- Bishop Gene Robinson, Retired Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire and Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, Washington, DC
"I read Waking Up White in one sitting. To say I loved it is an understatement. It's such a raw, honest portrait ... Irving's experience on display - warts and all - will help white people, who haven't noticed the role systemic privilege has played in their lives, start to see the world in a new way." -- Jodi Picoult, author, The Storyteller, My Sister's Keeper
Irving's personal and moving tale takes us on an adventure to a world utterly new to her as she wakes up to the reality of how, without her knowledge or active pursuit, she lives in a society which is set up to reward her at the expense of people of color. I cannot imagine a more understandable and compelling invitation to learn about how racism lives on in our homes, communities, and nation. -- Bishop Gene Robinson, Retired Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire and Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, Washington, DC
