joelogsliterature's reviews
72 reviews

I believe this is an important book, but I also wonder if it might be too direct too early for much of its audience. If DiAngelo struggles so much to have liberal white women to recognize their place in the edifice of racism, then how would a conservative white man take such a book? I do not mean to say that is the intended audience. Rather my point is that those who might benefit from this are already ostensibly on the side of anti-racism, which is a meager portion of the populace. While it is valuable to identify common misconceptions, to state the obvious that <i>You are almost certainly racist. Even if you are not intentionally or consciously so, even if you have connections with black people, and even if you've faced difficulties yourself</i>, and to use that as a starting point for investigation into genuine remedies toward the amelioration of racism in America—while all of that is valuable, I think it fails to reach the potential of the ideas herein, which might be promulgated more broadly. Still, there is real value in giving reprieve from the worst of racism even if only for a few.

This book is really a starting point for those who are equipped with the prerequisites. Thankfully there is a helpful reading list to follow. I think this would be more striking for those wholly unfamiliar with the titular concept, but that was not at all how I came in. I think in 2025, the notion is commonplace, but it is also frequently watered down to mere frailty, which fails to recognize the pernicious power such fragility holds, both in the tears of white women and in the aggressions of white men. In this way, while most of this book was familiar, still some examples stood out to me: those examples that apply to my own racism. I was not entirely unaware of them, but it is also more comfortable always to push them aside as OK, which is to be more than complicit in this self-regulating façade for the broader racist structures at play. 

In any case, this is a reasonably powerful little read. It is example-driven with minimal abstraction, and it pulls from the works of many others, especially Black people who, unlike the author, have direct otherwise inaccessible experience with the frustrations and injustices born of fragility. Remember: If it feels exhausting to approach racism with open humility and recognition like suggested, then imagine how exhausting it is to navigate it perpetually from the other end. 

It’s still worth reading, but it’s incredibly repetitive save for the final book (which might also feature its laziest supposed arguments). Studying it historically or as a mastery of the classical forms—it is chocked with references—shows an incredibly impressive work, and many of the ideas here (themselves usually recycled but united in a novel secular-religious union) remain relevant bases for theologically informed philosophical investigation. 

I’m ambivalent in some ways about this. Its didacticism is very mixed, and somehow it’s feel-good optimism feels capitulating, but I’m not at all for whom this was written. I hope it helps others. I certainly had a fairly good time, although this sequel was a lot less novel and so less exciting for the fantastical elements than the original. The big water scene and the finale scenes (final chapter + epilogue) were fun. The testimony was a bit frustrating but at least exciting. 

My third time reading this: 5th(?) grade, 9th grade, and now I’m far past grades. It’s very short and anything but sweet. In loneliness, the subjugated find some common ground. This book is about raising questions about that unity and gaining insight into the lives of working class people. 

It's still a bit of fun on re-read (listen) as an adult. Ponce's voice work is great. While I have more nostalgia for the movie (the book predates my birth by a bit), I think I still prefer the book better. The beginning leaves more of an impression, Peeves fits for it, etc.