I picked this up because I wanted to have more of an idea of what it might be like for Black individuals to navigate predominantly White spaces, including the ones I am part of. As much as I strive to be anti-racist and to learn, I know that I will fall short sometimes. And while I have done a lot of learning and work at an organization that values diversity, even a memoir such as this one was able to open my eyes yet more to how I view and react to others and to the world, and how that may affect others.
Brown writes about her life as a Black, Christian woman, focusing mostly on her adulthood. She, too, has worked for organizations that value diversity, or at least claim to, but often the administrators don’t actually enact their beliefs. Instead it always seemed to be Brown who was expected to change, to have more kindness, compassion, or grace for White individuals, not White people who needed to change their own behaviors. Such was the running theme throughout the book. Whether at college, at a nonprofit, or at a church, Brown kept butting up against White people who let guilt get in their way of making meaningful change.
That idea of making meaningful change is where one of my own blind spots showed up. Brown writes,
. . . I picked up the unspoken belief that I was made for white people . . . Much of my teaching (and learning) managed to revolve around whiteness—white privilege, white ignorance, white shame, the things white folks “needed” in order to believe racial justice is a worthy cause . . . I worked as if white folks were at the center, the great hope, the linchpin, the key to racial justice and reconciliation—and so I contorted myself to be the voice white folks could hear.
And I was confused because I thought White people really were the linchpin, not because White people are the most important but because of the White role in maintaining racial oppression. I thought that reaching and teaching White people is the route to changing racist policies, whether that teaching comes from POC or other White individuals and organizations. This belief ignores the way change can happen within and from Black communities and that of course Black people don’t want to center their lives around White people. It also ignores that change has the potential to happen without a majority. As Brown also writes, “At no point have all white people gotten together and agreed to the equitable treatment of Black people. And yet there has been change, over time, over generations, over history.”
The intended audience for this book seems to be both Black and White people. I don’t want to speculate what Black people can, should, or will get from this book (though I can perhaps guess), but I do think White people can learn a lot from reading it. Brown writes accessibly and hopefully. She doesn’t have all the answers, but she’s doing hard work and invites others to do the same.