After a looong lacuna I've finally got back to Frances Kendall's Understanding White Privilege. As before, plenty of thought-provoking stuff: for example, Kendall examines the common hope that ending racism is a matter of White and non-White people being friends. She calls this "the myth of the personal fix". I think it plays a huge role in the ( Read more... )

I wanted to share with you a moment of revelatory hair-raisingness I experienced while reading Understanding White PrivilegeOne of the points Frances Kendall makes, and which I think is really crucial to understanding contemporary racism, is the issue of who gets to be at the centre. Who's natural, normal, regular, average, typical? Who's the ( Read more... )

Today I read the first chapter and some random bits of Understanding White Privilege: Creating Pathways to Authentic Relationships Across Race by Frances E. Kendall. I am at once compelled and soothed by her openness, honesty, experience, and compassion - for White people as well as Black. I think I'm going to learn a lot from this book ( Read more... )