From Publishers Weekly
This uncompromising anti-racist manifesto written for a white audience is concerned less with Klansmen and skinheads than with the white woman clutching her purse when minority teenagers draw near; the white man flinching at getting in an elevator full of black men; even the well-meaning but patronizing liberal teacher in a ghetto school. Sue, a Chinese-American psychologist, argues that the countless daily slights inflicted by such "unconscious and unintentional racists," do more harm to minorities than the occasional hate-crime. He reveals the subtle but pervasive bias against minorities in the economy, the media, school system, even the subconscious mind (whites have involuntary negative reactions when flashed subliminal images of black faces), and shows how the "invisible whiteness of being" allows whites to remain oblivious to the privileges they enjoy. The book demands that whites "accept responsibility for their whiteness," and includes suggested readings, videotapes, and exercises to help whites unearth and deal with their biases and learn to mingle with minorities. It includes a seven-phase program for reconstructing a non-racist white identity, culminating in a conversion experience, complete with emotional catharsis and adoption of a "second family" of minorities and other "liberated whites." Whites may bridle at Sue's accusatory tone and find the recovery-movement tone of his remedy off-putting. But many will feel a painful shock of recognition at his subtle but unsparing analysis of everyday racism, and find this provocative book a compelling challenge to their complacency.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
"'We shall overcome,' but how? Derald Wing Sue points us to a path. He invites readers to engage him in dialogues to confront the master narrative of American history— the story that this country was settled by European immigrants and that Americans are white.Taking us beyond the Black and White binary, he illuminates the experiences of Americans of the twenty-first century's society of expanding ethnic diversity." —Ronald Takaki, author,
A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America "This book is intended to provoke and challenge, and it succeeds admirably. Sometimes it even made me angry, but it always forced me to think about myself and assess the way I behave." — Arthur Levine, Ph.D., president, Teachers College, Columbia University
"Dr. Sue is mapping a warrior's path with a compassionate heart.This book will take the discussion of racism in our society to a new level in which we can finally begin to address it in a manner that will bring deep changes and not just more rhetoric." —Eduardo Duran, Ph.D., Apache/Tewa, author, Buddha in Redface
"Most of us have internalized attitudes that affect our actions in negative and unfair ways toward people of color. Sue's book allows us to understand those attitudes as well as the white privilege most White Americans do not realize they possess! All thinking people who wish to increase integrity in their interactions with others should read this book!" —Melba J. T. Vasquez, Ph.D., ABPP, past president, American Psychological Association's Society for the Psychology of Women
"This singular book provides racially clueless and sometimes well-meaning people with the tools and context to liberate themselves— and the rest of us— from their destructive ways. Though the book centers on racism and whiteness, it also gives an insightful approach to other biased behavior, whether based on gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, or other common markers of prejudice. Most important, this book offers all of us the hope that constructive change is not only possible but within our capacity to achieve." —Helen Zia, author, Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of An American People
