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Book Cover for: So You Want to Talk about Race, Ijeoma Oluo

So You Want to Talk about Race

Ijeoma Oluo

Reader Score

81%

81% of readers

recommend this book

Critic Reviews

Great

Based on 10 reviews on

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The New York Times Best Seller
2020 & 2021 The New York Times Best Seller

In this New York Times bestseller, Ijeoma Oluo offers a hard-hitting but user-friendly examination of race in America
Widespread reporting on aspects of white supremacy--from police brutality to the mass incarceration of Black Americans--has put a media spotlight on racism in our society. Still, it is a difficult subject to talk about. How do you tell your roommate her jokes are racist? Why did your sister-in-law take umbrage when you asked to touch her hair--and how do you make it right? How do you explain white privilege to your white, privileged friend?
In So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo guides readers of all races through subjects ranging from intersectionality and affirmative action to "model minorities" in an attempt to make the seemingly impossible possible: honest conversations about race and racism, and how they infect almost every aspect of American life.
"Oluo gives us--both white people and people of color--that language to engage in clear, constructive, and confident dialogue with each other about how to deal with racial prejudices and biases."--National Book Review
"Generous and empathetic, yet usefully blunt . . . it's for anyone who wants to be smarter and more empathetic about matters of race and engage in more productive anti-racist action."--Salon (Required Reading)

Book Details

  • Publisher: Seal Press (CA)
  • Publish Date: Sep 24th, 2019
  • Pages: 272
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.10in - 5.40in - 0.90in - 0.48lb
  • EAN: 9781580058827
  • Categories: Minority StudiesCultural & Ethnic Studies - American - African American & BlDiscrimination

About the Author

Ijeoma Oluo is the author of Mediocre and a writer and speaker whose work on race has been featured in the New York Times and the Washington Post. She was named to the 2021 Time 100 Next list, has twice been named to The Root 100, and received the Harvard Humanist of the Year award. She lives in Seattle, Washington.

More books by Ijeoma Oluo

Book Cover for: Be a Revolution: How Everyday People Are Fighting Oppression and Changing the World--And How You Can, Too, Ijeoma Oluo
Book Cover for: Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America, Ijeoma Oluo
Book Cover for: Así Que Quieres Hablar de Raza / So You Want to Talk about Race, Ijeoma Oluo
Book Cover for: The Badass Feminist Coloring Book, Ijeoma Oluo
Book Cover for: The Badass Feminist Coloring Book: Teen Friendly Edition, Ijeoma Oluo
Book Cover for: So You Want to Talk about Race, Ijeoma Oluo

Critics’ reviews

Praise for this book

"Simply put: Ijeoma Oluo is a necessary voice and intellectual for these times, and any time, truth be told."--Phoebe Robinson, New York Times-bestselling author of You Can't Touch My Hair
"Oluo is out to help put words to action, which at this day and age, might be exactly what we need."--Forbes
"Fascinating, real, and necessary."--The Root
"A guidebook for those who want to confront racism and white supremacy in their everyday lives, but are unsure where to start."--Bitch
"Oluo offers us a reset, a starting point, a clear way forward."--dream hampton, writer, activist, filmmaker, and executive producer of Surviving R. Kelly
"Impassioned and unflinching"
--Vogue.com
"Read it, then recommend it to everyone you know."--Harper's Bazaar (Named a Top 10 Book of the Year)
"I don't think I've ever seen a writer have such an instant, visceral, electric impact on readers. Ijeoma Oluo's intellectual clarity and moral sure-footedness make her the kind of unstoppable force that obliterates the very concept of immovable objects."--Lindy West, New York Times-bestselling author of Shrill
"A must-read primer on the politics of American racism."--Bustle