T]he sense of superiority encoded into whiteness remains a very effective ruse to distract “white people” from the oppression many of them experience keenly; the pressure of financial precariousness, the unaffordability of a home, the erosion of healthcare and education, or any of the other countless deprivations endured while trying to “make a living” in a world that has become increasingly unlivable.’

This is clearly in the mold of 2020’s antiracist books, but Dabiri wouldn’t thank you for considering her under the same umbrella. She doesn’t like the concept of allyship because it reinforces unhelpful roles: people of colour as victims and white people as the ones with power who can come and save the day. I felt it lent an accessibility to the topics that put the reader somewhat at ease and more open to contemplating the questions she is posing.a b c d Lothian-McLean, Moya (25 August 2022). "An interview with Emma Dabiri — TOLKA" . Retrieved 15 May 2023. Dabiri has appeared on the television programmes Have I Got News For You, Portrait Artist of the Year. [12] and Question Time. Great collection of thought provoking essays shining light not only on how racism but classism has affected the USA as well as the roles + often vastly differing ripple effects seen in the UK & Ireland in particular; the two other countries this author has resided in. Her lived experiences vary wildly and deepen the conversations that need to happen. We can all (I hope) recognise that racism does not exist in a vacuum; not everyone’s experience is the same therefore there can be no one solution to fix all! Conversations are obviously musts, but we also all need to be open to *listening* - Emma has insightful takes on the role of social media and preformative activism. Her first essay’s comparison of the abolitionists to modern day activism is mind opening! 📝 This led to poorer white people developing feelings of animosity and resentment towards the British Empire as capitalism byway of colonialism highlighted the class difference between the rich and the poor. There are a new generation of people coming up, who see the contradictions and problems in the form of activism that I'm critical of in the book. They're very astute thinkers. People who are joining the dots between capitalism, class, race and the environment. Young activists, such as Mikaela Loach, are doing just this.

Pull people up on racism - it’s our collective responsibility to challenge racism if we see or hear it anywhere

Games

Hazel Chu: I think you hit the nail on the head there by saying even when there are different minorities that join forces, inevitably division is sown within them to try to break up that alliance… Is there an answer to how people form that allyship better?

So what is next? How do we form this sense of collective empathy? Dabiri explains that allyship functions on favours, and favours can be taken away based on the whims of the individual, so we need something stronger. I'm reminded of how the multibillion-dollar company Deliveroo, instead of paying their employees properly, or considering them employees, has added a little mechanism at the end of a delivery asking us, the individual consumer, to tip their riders based on their performance. Corporate and governmental responsibility projected on to the charitable sentiments of the individual. By examining the attitudes of poorer white people during 16th century US settlement, we find that capitalism was created to uphold the elite. After an onslaught of widespread uncertainty and brutal instability, we all need a guiding map to help us move forward together. What White People Can Do Next: From Allyship to Coalition, Emma Dabiri’s second book, pioneers urgent new roads to social change and new forms of dialogue. What White People Can Do Next offers guidance on how to move beyond allyship. Speaking out against racism remains critical but to progress and create lasting change, action must be taken beyond just speaking out. Capitalism controls every aspect of our lives, and as the author points out while providing historical context, the invention of 'race as social construct' came about to "justify the exploitation of one group of people for the material benefit of another". It’s common to see microagressions in the spotlight, but is also necessary to see the bigger picture. Class is often downplayed when discussing race despite being an important factor. White people even though they don’t experience racism, often have diminished life opportunities, which the author claims it serves a possibility to build coalition. Many of the ways of dividing people is by making them fight and making them feel one is a threat to the wellbeing of the other, and unless you’re a wealthy white cisgender heterosexual male (see how many unless) you’re bound to be a part of one or more 'marginalized' group(s), and it should be in your interest to liberate yourself from that. The word privilege is widely used, but the author proposes to use power instead, since most of the people talking about privilege don’t have it, because of their class struggles. The idea is not that privilege doesn’t exist, but if we want people to unite as equals, constantly pointing out a privilege narrative does little good since it continues to perpetrate the idea that we are inherently different.Naming whiteness is necessary; it is the ‘invisibility’ of white people, who are presented just as ‘people’, the default norm from which everyone else deviates.” Una Mullally: What about how discourse around colonialism can be leveraged to incorporate anti-racist movements in Ireland? Es ist auf jeden Fall eins der Sachbücher, dass mich noch lange beschäftigen und zum Nachdenken anregen wird.

The book in question is, of course, What White People Can Do Next, which has become a smash hit since it first launched in April. After a year fraught with the reality of racism, it had felt to me like despite the abundant “discourse” about racism, there was still very little to actually be hopeful about in terms of real change. Dabiri’s book provides a tonic: a palette cleanser to the neo-liberal approach of dismantling racism we’ve grown accustomed to. we should try to understand our lives as a dynamic flowing of positions" as opposed to the rigid identity norms that have been imposed by capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy. They also look at the unique Irish experience of race, and the potency of the opportunity our society is faced with, where Ireland can resist the borrowed racism from elsewhere, and instead create something new. Dabiri uses a similar term,“Dúthchas”, which she explains as an “ancient Scottish Gaelic ecological principle of interconnectedness between people, the land and non-human beings. Dúthchas speaks to the type of coexistence that we are now perhaps too late recognising the utter necessity of if we are going to survive.” I recently read 𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘞𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘗𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘊𝘢𝘯 𝘋𝘰 𝘕𝘦𝘹𝘵 by @emmadabiri and felt inspired to share my main takeaways from this insightful, radical essay.

Books Multibuys

In truth, what the year of the pandemic, more so than any other, has taught me is that I have no expectations of any 'racial' group. How could millions of heterogeneous people live up to any one singular expectation of mine?" I wrote something similar a while ago. As the book makes clear, we have to realise that racism hurts all of us. It isn’t just about those who it targets – it is a poison which corrupts everything. Dabiri urges us to outright refuse the options of social change we have been presented with and begin the discussion on a new way of being. I found big government, socialist politics, wealth redistribution at the heart of the book. Rather than rouse the working proletariat a hundred years ago to dig their own graves, this author is hoping to spur the bourgeoisie to do so by abandon capitalism to solve racism. Otherwise, it’s the same book Marx wrote Not going to lie and say I did more than skim through the book. I stumbled across this in university [the only segment I read through was presented as a paper] hence that was on my reading list. Even my extremely left-leaning liberal professor was less than impressed and ripped the piece to shreds.