Comments on Books White People Need to Read - page 3
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I am not white and please don't engage in name-calling.
This list disgusts me, and is so typical of today's America.Thank God I'm White and smart enough not to be suffering from the pathetic "White Guilt Syndrome" as those of you who perpetuate this sick idea that Whites owe other races anything are.
Rest assured my children are being raised responsibly to protect their minds from your sickness.
To Redri9hthand - Thank you! I support you fully, am genuine in every regard when saying this, and I wish you success in all aspects of life!
We are all accountable individuals and need to be held to the same standards of civilization and behavior.
I find this list to be racist, offensive, and highly patronizing. The notion that I as a man of color in some way need whites to be "sensitive" to my "oppression" is absurd.
I surely do not need or want this pathetic patronizing by liberal whites, and am glad that you, Redri9hthand, would not offend me or others by offering it!
Lastly, whites as much as anybody else need to be able to defend themselves against racially-motivated physical attacks. Crime statistics bear this out in full. Take courses, know how to protect yourself and your family, no matter what your skin color may be.
Best regards!
The Help? Seriously? Everyone I know who recommends this book is a white woman. SMH.
Dorothy Hampton MarcusI Didn't Know What I Didn't Know: A Southern White Woman's Story about Race The true story of a Southern White Woman who fell into her life's mission to improve Race Relations in the U.S from the 1950's and and beyond. When the onset of dementia stalled her writing, her daughter Kaypri finished writing her mother's story.
Lianne (The Towering Pile) wrote: "Paul wrote: "Does the name of this list strike anybody as racist?To be more direct, the name of this list is racist.
How can this list exist without a presupposed and prejudiced stereotype of wh..."
Or as Dorothy Hampton Marcus would say they (some of her fellow Whites) "don't know" www.dorothystory.com
Lianne (The Towering Pile) wrote: "I don't think The Help should be on this list. (And it definitely shouldn't be near the top!) Every review I've read of that book that was written by a black person says that that book is really he..."I totally agree Lianne. A better book is Living In, Living Out: African American Domestics in Washington, D.C., 1910-1940 which tells the story that The Help conveniently left out. I did appreciate The Help because the main character reminded me of my (Southern) mother Dorothy Hampton Marcus who also recognized things weren't right (in the 1950's), Dorothy Hampton Marcus, but my mother was truly more revolutionary than Skeeter.
I'd respectfully disagree. What I find racist is the notion that white people need to be patronizing toward me because of my skin color. There is no benefit to anybody in the encouragement of white guilt. We need to get past the "boss" and "oppressed" model and build a civilized future.
Holly, excellent list and one badly needed on this site that seems to assume that everyone's experiences, tastes and interests emerge from... a certain background. Then when you point out that racism exists... you're the racist. It's a messed up world but here we be. Thanks again.
Racism does exist; nobody claimed otherwise. The racism exhibited by the list creator is the idea that "white people need to...", meaning they are all deficient in some regard that can be addressed by reading certain books.
Please do not assume that people of color are somehow above having racist attitudes towards whites. I assure you with all respect, and from personal experience, that this is far from being the case.
I agree the name is wrong - why should there be a list catered just to white people? Why would white people need to read this list? All races have been discriminated against, most of them have been slaves at some point (definitely true for whites). So why are they singled out for this list goal?
Erin (Paperback Stash) wrote: "I agree the name is wrong - why should there be a list catered just to white people? Why would white people need to read this list? All races have been discriminated against, most of them have been..."Because white people have institutional power in society. Therefore, we're the ones who most need to learn about racism, since we don't experience it firsthand. (Yes, we can experience racial discrimination, but it is not racism because it isn't institutional.) It's much the same as suggesting books about LGBT people for straight people to read; it's for us to learn about experiences other than our own.
It is just an odd experience as a man of color to read lectures about racism from people who have absolutely zero direct experience of the subject. Zero.Please understand, the idea that we need or seek your sensitivity is both untrue and somewhat insulting. We are doing just fine without your self-congratulatory feelings of moral superiority.
On one specific point, it is a complete falsehood to state that racism only exists in in a setting of institutional power. That is an absurd assertion that cannot be taken with any weight and runs counter to obvious direct experience.
For example, racially motivated hate crimes go in all directions and from any group. Such acts are racist, certainly, and they do not require institutional power.
Athens wrote: "It is just an odd experience as a man of color to read lectures about racism from people who have absolutely zero direct experience of the subject. Zero."So, you admit that because I'm white I don't experience racism? That has been my point literally this whole time...
A white who does not experience racism towards whites is simply one who does not live among people of color.Finding a child who has not seen a frog does not disprove the existence of frogs.
It only proves that you found a child with limited experience.
Athens wrote: "A white who does not experience racism towards whites is simply one who does not live among people of color.Finding a child who has not seen a frog does not disprove the existence of frogs.
It only proves that you found a child with limited experience."
So, you're just pretending to know things about my life now? I live in a city in Canada with one of the highest populations of First Nations people. I also live in a French neighbourhood, where a lot of people move from African countries where they speak French. Many of my neighbours in my apartment building are immigrants from India. So, I'm around people of colour all the time.
So how about you talk about what you actually know about, ie. not my life. OK?
Let's avoid taking discussions personally. It leads to impulsiveness and it derails productive dialogue.
Some have suggested that white people are the only ones capable of racism. This is an absurdity, and a position that is simply not supported by the facts.
It is analogous (not equivalent) to denying the holocaust. Regardless of facts to the contrary, deniers will deny.
Racism towards white people does exist, just like frogs do exist, regardless of the children who may not have seen a frog.
For any who harbor hate towards white people, please can you stop doing that? Including the whites who have feelings of hatred?
Thank you.
holy shit the dumbass white people on here leaving comments. And I'm white! Your shitty attitudes are the fucking problem.White people like me need to read books about racism and white privilege because we directly benefit from racism and white privilege. We live in one of the most racist periods in the history of the world, and here you are complaining because people are telling you to read a book to help open your mind about how you benefit in a socially constructed racial hierarchy where you're at the top.
shut the fuck up and read the books*! goddamn!
*except for The Help i dunno why the fuck that book is on here. I'm sure a bunch of white people voted for it
When I look at the communications, style, and demeanor of the white kids who like to think of themselves as privileged, and when I then compare them to my non-white kids, the best guess is that these whites are either 1) not privileged at all but like to imagine that they are (as some kind of a salve to soothe their lack of success), or 2) they were provided with some privilege but proved themselves unable to make any evident use of the advantage. The former of the two possibilities here is the more likely.
The underprivileged do need a way to feel special, and imagining they are privileged because of their white race is a way to achieve that feeling, even in the absence of any material accomplishment. Moreover, through imagined privilege they can achieve a feeling of mild superiority without having to exert any effort. All they have to do is proclaim their sense of guilt for being, as one prior poster puts it, "at the top".
As an aside, I find it humorous when the white guilt kids try to bestow their benevolence upon more successful non-whites, unaware that they are being condescending in an upwards direction. Admittedly, this irony comes from what I observe and suppose of their stations in the world. Nothing at all indicates they are even remotely "at the top".
Arguing against the possibility that these kids were truly privileged and have squandered the advantage is the fair observation that parents who care enough to give their children lasting advantage are generally not inclined to put up with shoddy results.
In my personal viewpoint, these white guilt kids are the underprivileged ones and rather than "checking their privilege", I would suggest they need to check their imaginations.
^ someone clearly doesn't understand what racism or privilege is. Maybe you should.....read a book?
When non-whites in the professional classes have worked to ensure that their kids do get privilege and advantage, it is a surreal disconnect to see an underprivileged white kid trying to assert that he is the holder white privilege. In fact, he has less.Ironically, these underprivileged white millennials have obtained much lower results in life than the non-whites over whom they wish to feel a "privilege".
I suspect that a sense of inferiority and underachievement on the part of white millenials drives them to seek the feeling that they somehow have the upper hand over non-whites, and that they can express this superiority through statements of white guilt.
To be plain, "shut the fuck up and read the books*! goddamn!" is not the argument of any man who has enjoyed privilege, or enjoyed the environment where parents work to develop their kids into citizens.
Quite the contrary, this is the expression of the underprivileged offspring, white or otherwise.
Athens, you are conflating race and class. A poor, uneducated white person does not have class privilege as compared to a wealthy, educated person of colour. But they do have white privilege. Those are two separate things and they do not cancel each other out.Kind of like how a gay man still has male privilege compared to a straight woman, even while she has straight privilege compared to him. Make sense?
Privilege and oppression are way more complicated than you are making them out to be.
Are the people voting for The Help and The Secret Life of Bees the same group who object to the idea that white people would benefit from reading books about non-white people? Or do we just happen to have two different types of ignorance going on in one place?
This list started out as an excellent idea, but as the idea that we need to pander to white people and make them feel comfortable grew, gradually we got more and more books about race written by white people with little to no self awareness, and more and more racist literature (what's up with "white girls bleed a lot?" cmon). White people, you WILL feel uncomfortable reading about anti racism. Literature exists to take us outside of our comfort zone. What is the point of reading antiracist literature that makes you, a white person who benefits from racism, feel good about yourself? The point is not to guilt you into acting. The point is that you should be aware of your racial biases. Just as people of color need to unlearn socially imbued self loathing, white people need to unlearn racist aggressions.
This list is not supposed to be comfortable. It is supposed to be difficult to read. It's okay to feel upset or victimized. It's only a tiny fraction of how the vast majority of the world's people of color feel. If you don't want to educate yourself on racism, you can put down the book. We, however, cannot take off our skin colors and be treated like whites.
Everyone who's acting like we're already in a post-racial haven--this list is ESPECIALLY for you.
Why do you refer to white people in 3rd person? Are you mixed race?
To be direct, white people who get by with little or no income but think they are "privileged" because of their race are an object of amusement among colored professionals. That is the polite way of putting it. Let's see your imagined privilege get you into a nice hotel.This is a racist list against white people. I am not white, but have seen both non-whites and whites alike hold racist views against whites. I have seen racist positions against white people several times on this list and find it both deplorable and shameful.
I respect how MJ reveals his feelings of racism against whites in the book "Michael Jordan: The Life" by by Roland Lazenby. He reveals how he worked through it and got to the other side. Now there's a man for you - I never saw him asking for pity and he is not afraid to say who he was or who he is.
I'm tempted to remove pandering-to-white-people type books (starting with The Help) from the list, but worry that someone like Athens would report me for it. With a list like this (where it's difficult to objectively say what belongs on the list and what doesn't) it might be hard to convince Goodreads that I wasn't vandalising.
Sometimes I have a really hard time, to follow American logic. I'm sure it's because we have a very different history in our backpacked. But... If you try to defend white people, you're a racist. If you're white, you're born a racist etc...
I have been bullied because of my skin colour. Is that racist? Or just because I'm white, got blonde hair and blue eyes it's okay?
I have never been called a racist, but in my world it equals to be called a nazi. And some of you say all "whites" are born racist because of their history. If that is true, all germans are Nazi's aswell?
If you ever read The Uncanny by S. Freud you would know, it's actually a pretty normal thing to be aware or even afraid of people who are different from yourself - should it be skin colour, culture or somehting like that. And it is a biological fact that we have a hard time to seperate people with different skin colour if we havn't grown up amongst them. And the colour of our skin is only a reaction to absorbing D-vitamins from the sun. And if we have to talk about races amongst human species we have Homo Sapiens Sapiens, Australopithecus Afarensis, Homo Erectus etc... Our genpool doesn't support to sepreate us into actually races.
When we define people, we should define them by their culture not their skin colour.
By the way, I don't deny that "white" looking people with "white" names have an advantage in a Western culture. And I really whished it wasn't so.
One of my most beloved books about is Chinua Achebe everything falls apart. It describes perfectly the culture clash between Africans and colonist/missionaries. The book describes a scene, where a woman gives birth to twins. But because they are an image of each other they're uncanny, unfamiliar (Unheimlich) - and they kill one of them because they were afraid.
Sorry for my english (it's my fouth language) and sorry if I sound even a bit racist.
It's really hard not to sound racist, when you're white and every sentence you write will be superanalyzed into Born-To-Be-A-Racist-Because-You're-white-And-Because-Your-German-Grandonkel-Fought-In-WW2-You're-A-Nazi-Aswell.
Thanks Sinejosepha for your thoughts. I read what you wrote and actually agree with almost all of what you indicated here. In my view, you put your ideas very well into just a few paragraphs.
Group-protection paradigm was part of survival for most of humanity's time on earth, it resides in the lower or older brain, and therefore will not likely disappear soon. (Arthur Koestler, "Ghost in the Machine" - this is a fascinating and powerful book).
I believe with all my heart that you as a white person have as much right as anybody to not be attacked physically or verbally because of your race! Some may disagree with that assertion, in fact some here do, but leave it to them to explain why.
Please do not apologize for your relatives, ever. Please do not accept or acknowledge any form of group guilt - not even acknowledge the concept. Despite centuries of inter-tribal conflict and war in Africa, I do not acknowledge the idea that the Zulu or any tribe carries guilt as a group, I can promise you that.
I have non-white relatives and associates who are racist against whites, but I shall never remotely consider apologizing for them, their racist thinking, or their behavior.
Each man or woman is responsible for themselves.
Thanks!
Sinejosepha, no one is saying that a) it's OK to be bullied for anything, ever, b) all Germans are Nazis, or c) all white people are racist.As you said, white people have advantages, because we live in a racist society. That doesn't mean that white people are all racist (though we do often have racist tendencies thanks to the cultures we're raised in), but it does mean that all white people have white privilege. And that means it's our responsibility to learn about racism and do what we can to dismantle it, first in ourselves, and then in the world around us.
Whites are no different in any regard merely by the attribute of their color. We are all responsible for ourselves as individuals.
would u watch the movie, 'dear white people'
I was going to make a list of book black people need to read but then I remembered that 99% of blacks think books are whitey devil. Oh well, I guess stupid guilty feeling whites will read them anyway.
As a man of color, I tire of racism against white people within my community. I tire of it in any community, for that matter.This list is racist against white people. There is no racial deficiency inherent within white people, the way the title of this list would imply.
Much of the recent rioting and looting across the US is anti-white racist sentiment against officer Darren Wilson. Had he not been white, none of this would have happened. Responsible blacks are tired of this behavior and wish to distance ourselves from it.
It is a racist act to assume that whites are racist.
Let's try to keep this discussion about the books, for a change.
This goodreads book list, hosted by the site, is racist.
I am not white and I STILL find it offensive that Goodreads would host such blatant racism against people because of their skin color.
The list should be called "Books to make you think white privilege exists" or "Books that whites shouldn't read".
OK, we get that there are objections to this list. So please feel free not to look at it if it offends you. The rest of us are getting sick and tired of arguing about it. This thread has been nothing but arguing for over a year now. This is ridiculous.
Yep, ridiculous like "White privilege".
Please do not try to silence or crush the thoughts and opinions of people who are trying to fight racism, including racism against white people like this list enbodies. This list is a racist act and I encourage any and all to resist it.
Athens, 'm not trying to silence anyone; I just would rather you'd talk about this somewhere else. You're the one who's silenced the people on this list who actually want to discuss the books. Notice how none of them comment anymore? You've driven us all away with this neverending conversation. You've honestly ruined Goodreads for me. I dread coming to this site because I know I'll see your comments.
Oh good grief, the list isn't racist, it's just suggesting books that might help open white people's eyes to how race works. Since white is considered best, and the default, in most western countries, it's not something we as white people necessarily understand. That is really all there is to it, and complaining about it is missing the point.
White people are the least favored in things like hate-crime and the the ones that get less help when they're in bad situations like poverty. A black man can be proud of being black, an asian/mongolic can be proud of his race also, but a white man can't because that's racist. Whites are told everyday that they countries need diversity because without that they can't do jacksh*t, and a lot even have white-guilt because of Slavery, even though Africans enslaved a lot of white people a long time ago.Teach THE WORLD to not be racist, don't just teach the white that he's racist, when in fact, white countries are the most culture open countries, while in countries like Japan, they do not care to mock your culture and almost nobody can get a Japanese citizenship, or Africa, where a lot of extremist groups say they have to kill all the white people to be free, yet the only supremacist group that receives media attention is the KKK.
Also, everybody seems to ignore that whites ended slavery, and other practices like that.
I'll repeat again, don't teach the white to not be racist, teach THE WORLD to no be racist.
"Racism: noun
1. a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
2. a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
3. hatred or intolerance of another race or other races."
Nowhere do I see anything that says that white people are the only ones capable of racism. And Femke's statement that "white people are inherently racist" fits definition #1 for racism.
A boy I knew in high school lived in China for several years because his parents were missionaries. The stories he tells of how he was treated because he was "white" are atrocious. Are you telling me that that was not racism? A little boy being bullied and beat up while being called by many racial slurs was not the victim of racism? And what about minority-to-minority racism? I've heard many people of many races express hatred for Mexicans, Native Americans, and Middle Easterners.
I don't think anyone said that this title was equal to hate crimes. But comments such as yours is where it begins. It tells people it is okay to hate whites because of some idea that only whites are racist. So because of that a person thinks it's okay to hate, beat, or kill someone because they are white. It has happened before. (Google Chris Lane, whose murderer tweeted "90% of white ppl are nasty. #HATE THEM." shortly before killing the man in cold blood.) And attitudes such as yours will guarantee that it happens again. Oppression is not the only form of racism.