Oluo's first book is a guide to honest conversation about race in contemporary America, organized as a series of chapters each titled with a question readers commonly ask. Drawing on personal experience as a Black woman raised by a white single mother in the Seattle area, and now raising mixed-race sons, as well as on statistics and history, she defines racism as prejudice reinforced by systems of power and addresses white privilege, intersectionality, police brutality, affirmative action, the school-to-prison pipeline, microaggressions, cultural appropriation, the model-minority myth, and the use of racial slurs. Alongside explanation, she offers practical counsel on listening, avoiding defensiveness, and acting rather than merely talking. First published January 16, 2018, the book became a New York Times bestseller and returned to that list in 2020, when it reached a wide new readership seeking a direct, accessible framework for these discussions.
Author: Ijeoma Oluo ยท Original publisher: Seal Press (New York, NY), 2018
