White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide

This book brought understanding to a lot of things. As a white male 54 yoa, I was taught a lot of things that you hear over and over in the news and said by friends and we cheer yea, yea! This book is loaded with facts about what has happened and how white people have used the system of the courts and politics to keep minorities, specifically African Americans down. Its sad, but a real eye opener. What are we afraid of? I want to say I am sorry to every African American I know and see. If this writing was not backed by fact of law, I would have closed it and not returned. As it was I read it straight through and gave copies to my friends to read.

Before you buy this book, you need to know what you are getting. This is not social science. There is no methodology, no sampling, no peer review. This is also not academic history. It is heavily end noted, but the end notes are often misleading or simply wrong. Of the sample I checked, approximately 40% were entirely or substantially misrepresented. The most accurate were those citing primary sources, of which Ms. Anderson has very few. They are mostly court cases. On the other hand, the use of tertiary sources is quite abundant. Ms. Anderson has proved that there are a significant number of people who share her biases and prejudices and have written about them. You might be able to make the case that the first 2/3 of the book is pop history, in that particular genre this would not be that bad. Ms. Anderson is not Barbara Tuchman but she can at least keep a narrative moving. Ms. Anderson\’s hypothesis, if we can call it that, is that not only are there economic motivations for white racism (primarily against African Americans, though Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans do figure in on a number of occasions. Short aside, Carol: Indians prefer to be called Indians rather than Native Americans so that they can remind triumphalist fans of Columbus how off course he was….), but that there is a primal urge on the part of white people to deny black people their dignity and equal opportunity at success. I am guessing many of your heard the problem with this already: okay, interesting idea, now, Why? Why are white people uniquely cursed with this primal urge to deny others their rightful place in society? Well, Carol doesn\’t know or she is not saying but, either way, that question isn\’t going to be answered in this book. She denies that the source of the historical antagonism was exclusively economic so, what is it then? Having read the entire book, I have no clue. More damning, however, is a more basic issue which Carol never addresses: what is \”white\”? Is this rage-filled entity a person, a club or gathering (think the KKK), many people, a particular economic class or ethnicity? Does this \”white\” have a particular religion or none at all? Once again, Carol doesn\’t feel the need to describe her straw man before she knocks him down. One gets the impression that \”white\” is simply anyone who disagrees with her politically. And oh, is there politics here! She added a new afterword called \”Imaginings\”! John Lennon would be proud! First, we are treated to the now completely discredited \”Russian Mole\” narrative, the voter suppression fantasy, the \”how brutally they mistreated Barack because he\’s black\” tale (Carol is shocked and dismayed that Republicans would act to thwart the policy initiatives of a left of center Democratic president with whom they disagreed. How dare they! It can only be racism!). Then, you guessed it, she saddles up the unicorn. We can make the world a perfect place if we all just let Carol and her \”moderate\” hard left comrades completely remake the United States to be the leftist fantasyland Sweden never was able to become. I will conclude with a few observations about strange things in the text. She prefers \”disfranchisement\” to \”disenfranchisement\” and uses the word liberally, especially in the How-to-Ride-Your-Unicorn chapter. I found it a little jarring never having encountered it before, but Google assures me it is a legitimate alternative. She also twice mentions the sinking of the Lusitania. Curious given that Americans were only 10% of the dead and none of those were African American. If only the rage-filled ones are dying, isn\’t that a net positive for the world? It is pretty clear that Carol\’s knowledge of history, specifically how Europe and East Asia have an impact on developments in the US, is quite limited. Her knowledge of economics is rudimentary (think what you learned in high school when you took economics to avoid another semester of math…). And, of course, she never addresses the fact that she is constantly referring to \”white allies\” that are helping to move the cause of equality forward, but bear the same adjective as the rage-filled ones. This is why she really needs to tell the reader what \”white\” is. Or come up with a better title. Or read \’Taboo\’ by Wilfred Reilly. And grow up. Yeah, grow up would be a good suggestion, too.

I can\’t believe I\’m wasting even more of my time writing a review, but this book is so bad I had to. I read to page 32 and then about a dozen more pages at random to confirm that this book is nothing but another piece of progressive dogmatic garbage. Using a bunch of big words does not improve the validity of an argument that is backed up by nothing but propoganda. It\’s really a shame, because there is probably some truth somewhere in this book, but it is so obfuscated by all the generic leftist rhetoric that I\’ve completely discredited the author. The purpose of this book seems to be to incite rage and spur hate unless you are just virtue signaling in the Religion of Progressivism.

Malcom X was right when he said, \”The Mason-Dixon line begins at the Canadian border.\” My wife and I are Caucasians who live in Maine, the whitest but least religious state in the union. Our two sons are young African-American men. We\’ve raised them since they were both three-weeks old. Reading Ms. Anderson\’s \’White Rage\’ was discouraging as hell because the author is absolutely correct. My frustration and simmering but ever-growing anger is because of American Whites still aggressively assaulting African-Americans\’ civil rights. Some of nefarious actions are done on the sly while other activities are boldly done in broad friggin daylight. Since the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Republican Party has become the home for racists. Like the Theory of Evolution, the facts are overwhelming. Disputing it simply means you are an ignoramuses or a closet racist spitting out sophistry. The evidence is that clear cut. I understand calling people racist is quite the buzz-kill for reasoned discussion, but pussyfooting around the word solves nothing, especially when it is an accurate description. Ms. Anderson explains the actions are taken not just by racist yahoos in the South but throughout our country by mostly white men in power. The author begins the book by explaining the South\’s reactions to the passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments giving African-Americans their civil rights. The words may be in our Constitution but minority disenfranchisement has been the paradigm ever since and very much present in 2018. Ms. Anderson carefully cites the numerous Supreme Court rulings that prevent especially African-Americans from seeking equality in housing, employment, and education throughout the United States. The author covers important historical periods such as Reconstruction, Black Codes, the Great Migration (1915-1940), retells Chicago and Detroit White mobs attacking Blacks from moving into their neighborhoods, Brown v. Topeka Board of Education, school funding, the Civil Rights Act, mass incarcerations of blacks, Republicans\’ reaction to President Obama winning, and present-day ploys such as voter-ID laws, gerrymandering, and removing polling places for minorities to vote. Gratefully, Ms. Anderson also points out the racist Council of Conservative Citizens which has many powerful members. She also includes a chapter in the paperback edition which explains Trump\’s victory. If I could wave a magic wand, every American would have to read Ms. Anderson\’s excellent book and if they either did not understand it or dismissed her well-researched book, then they\’d read it again and again and again until the material finally sunk into their skulls. As a dad to African-American sons, I\’ve lost count of the number of Whites who refuse to acknowledge that racism in America is systemic, institutional, and pervasive. So in lieu of my lack of a magic wand I will resort to a plea. For the love of god, if you truly believe in democracy, read \’White Rage\’. It\’s only 178-pages long, well supported, and could be read and understood by any baboon with a modicum of intelligence. The author\’s intelligent polemic ends on a hopeful note and a challenge to citizens who believe in democracy.

I can\’t really call this an enjoyable book given the subject matter, but I thought it was brilliant. It was a real eye-opener for me. It made me realise how much I\’d sleep-walked through life. I had no idea about the depth of systemic racism in the States. The book explores how the legal and political machinery has suppressed African Americans since emancipation. It is really well written, accessible to a non-historian like me and clearly very thoroughly researched. I found it hard to put down. I have bought it as a present for several friends since.

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