"Why I'm No Longer Talking To White People About Race"

Reni Eddo-Lodge is that rarest of delights — a young, working-class Black woman from the humble London neighborhood of Tottenham with a voice in public life. She’s written everywhere from The Telegraph to The New York Times and won various awards for her work, which is focused on opening up the conversation about systemic racism in Britain. Her debut book, Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race (out tomorrow in the U.K. and in December in the U.S.), is an important collection of essays on the topic.

The book started as a blog post in 2014 when, frustrated at walking on eggshells when discussing race with white people, Eddo-Lodge wrote: “I just can’t engage with the bewilderment and the defensiveness as they try to grapple with the fact that not everyone experiences the world in the way that they do. They’ve never had to think about what it means, in power terms, to be white — so any time they’re vaguely reminded of this fact they interpret it as an affront…”

Exploring everything from class to feminism to the racial bias that is usually swept under the carpet in the U.K., the book is a real eye-opener when it comes to Britain’s hidden history of discrimination. And Reni doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to naming and shaming the unsisterly white feminists she’s come across along the way. She's someone I greatly admire for going against the grain and speaking up for what's right. Below, we had a conversation about her process, and about why a book like this matters now.

"I think I’ve been talking to white people about race ever since I published the post that said I don’t want to talk to white people about race anymore — it had the opposite effect! But one thing that it did change was the quality of the conversations I was having about race with white people. They got a lot better."

"Definitely. Sometimes I think of it in the context of a strike. The withdrawal of labor. Then everyone is like 'Noooo!' But what I found in the comments under the original post was people saying things like, 'But you’re taking something really important away from us if you do that,' and I was thinking, if it’s so important, why was I just constantly being shut down? So I think in that initial post and the title of the book, it was me really saying that there needs to be a new way to discuss these issues, because the way that we’re all so used to is really unhelpful and destructive."

"To me, racism is about structural disadvantage. It’s about the fact that a Black boy is three times as likely as the rest of the school population to be excluded from school, it’s about the fact that Black people in the criminal justice system receive harsher sentences for possession of drugs, even though white people are much more likely to use drugs, it’s about the fact that if you have an African- or Asian-sounding name you’re much less likely to be called to interview when you’re applying for jobs than a white person with an English-sounding name with identical qualifications and experience. It’s about the fact that Black people are much more likely to be sectioned in mental health services because of stereotypes that we’re aggressive and uncontrollable.

"We can’t avoid education, we all need a job, and it’s likely that we’re going to come into contact with the NHS [National Health Service] or policing or the criminal justice system at some point in our lives. So I’m really talking about structural bias, which means that if you’re not white, you’re more likely to lose out in those systems. I think lots of people also have personal prejudice, and I tell that anecdote in the book about finding myself in a café with the Black man telling me, 'I save the best cuts of meat for us and not white people.' The fact of the matter is he was prejudiced."

"In its literal terms, it’s prejudging on racial prejudice. But he’s not in a position of power to negatively affect those white people’s life chances, if you know what I mean? I think lots of people have racial prejudice, but white people are more likely to be landlords, more likely to be CEOs, more likely to be in positions of power. So if you need a job or you need a home or you need an education, they’re the gatekeepers. I think racism is prejudice plus power, that’s where it really takes hold. Racism is a byword for prejudice and interpersonal nastiness, but I want to look at the bigger picture of institutional bias."

"I talk in the book about the fact that young Black people are more likely to go to university but much less likely to get into the best, and when they do graduate they’re much more likely to graduate with lower grades, and earn less. You could interpret these stats and say, 'Well it’s just because they’re not very good,' or you could say, 'The system is fucked, the system is biased.' And there’s also evidence to show that if you come from poverty, regardless of your color, that’s the case. Some people like to go on about meritocracy but the reality is that there’s a really homogenous group of people — basically middle-aged white men — who are hogging the positions we equate with talent."

"I think that more broadly, the system is not set up to elicit sympathy for the people who are not winning out of the system. I talk about fiction in the book and fictional representation. It’s one of the most effective vehicles for empathy that we’ve got in the modern world. As somebody who’s always been a fiction lover, I learned very quickly to empathize with white stories, because they were everywhere, and white people were at the centre of every narrative I read. But I think very few white people have learned to empathize with non-white stories. And that’s evidenced in the extreme backlash each time that a casting director or a novelist or someone like that attempts to 'Blackify' a beloved white character. People start saying it’s political correctness or it's multiculturalism. And it’s like I do believe that there’s lots of elements of the human experience that all of us can relate to, but they have thus far been communicated through white eyes."

"First off, don’t look at the bigger picture and then feel demoralized. In fact, feel defiant. I think that’s really important. Find a support network. Find ways to switch off when you need to. And get stuck in, in whatever way you feel you can best bring change, whether that is literally by giving financial support to a chronically underfunded organization that is working on these issues, or whether that’s admin support, volunteering, or having difficult conversations with people who are much more likely to listen to you than others. Just do what you can, when you can!"