Backlash: What Happens When We Talk Honestly about Racism in America [Hardcover]

Direct and honest, Yancys delineations of white violence, white indifference, and white na?vet? are both thoughtful and discomforting.For all readers with the courage and care to act for racial and social justice. One of Backlashs greatest attributes is that it reads as the work of a philosopher operating at the intersection of higher education and public intellectualism. . . . Backlash documents what happened when Yancy wrote honestly about white racism in America; more than that, it reclaims the discursive ground away from racist reactionaries and provides a way of moving the conversation forward. Searing, honest, and Unflagging in its pursuit of understanding.Rather than just acknowledging modern-day American racism, Yancy implores white readers to face the truth of their own bigotry, the privilege of their whiteness, and the ways that this whiteness inherently dehumanizes and endangers black people. . . . Yancy asks white readers to fundamentally question their sense of self, to accept the ugliness of the whiteness inherent in them. This is a monumental, incredibly difficult intellectual task. . . . Backlash is an honest, smart, and thoughtful book. . .This is a timely account of how raising the issue of racism to a white public can bring out the worst of humanity: hate. . . . It is not an easy book to read, no matter what your cultural and racial heritage, because it is unutterably sad that we need such a book in 2018. But we do require such an analysis of racism, and its concomitant ally whiteness. It is ubiquitous and rather insidious in all forms of social life, from the White House to the trailer park. Yancy gives heartfelt, yet courageous, insight into how the vitriol from whites stirred his humanity to be proactive, and seek further ways to reach the unreachable.George Yancys courageous appeal to White America to confront the problem of whiteness; to cultivate a critical awareness of the specter of whiteness and white privilege that each one of yolă#