Abstract
Reviewed by: Tanya Shute, Seneca College and Laurentian University, Ontario, Canada
In this collection of eight essays, Davis attempts to respond to some of the complex and often decontextualized issues related to race and White privilege as they play out in the current U.S. social, political, and economic spheres. Davis weaves personal narrative with dimensions of social psychology as he explains some of the legacy of current race-related issues in America and grounds those issues in their U.S historical context of centuries of slavery and terrorism under Jim Crow laws. Although there are scholarly elements embedded in his often very personal narratives, this book is intended for popular as well as scholarly audiences.
As a Canadian social work educator who benefits from White-skin privilege, I am hesitant to offer comment on Davis’ ability to conceptualize matters of Black/African American experience and race-related problems. However, as a Canadian diversity educator, I confirm here that Davis’ work is a valuable contribution to the classroom on issues of structural racism, White privilege, as well as some of the more challenging concepts related to social justice education and identity, such as biraciality and intersectionality. His theory that much of the current social display of race relations in the U.S. can be explained using cognitive dissonance theory is intriguing. His work is certainly a justification for truth, reconciliation and reparations for centuries of terrorism inflicted on Black/African Americans, although he does not go so far as to call for it explicitly. This work is clearly meant to inspire dialogue and critical consciousness, and that it does very well.
Davis’ writing style is very practical given the complexity of issues he is dealing with, and his language plain and free of academic jargon. Laid out in eight essays, each essay could be used in any social sciences classroom and is appropriately written for less scholarly audiences; therefore, it could be used in both secondary schools and community colleges, in addition to university-level classrooms. In these essays, such as one entitled “Why Can’t Blacks Be Like Immigrants?” Davis demonstrates why Black/African American experiences of racism are unique from the experience of other racialized groups in the U.S. In “Do you Know Anyone in Prison?” Davis provides a welcome critique of resiliency theories and approaches when applied to race-related problems. In “Whites in the Family,” he uses his own mother’s story to discuss gender as it intersects with racial identity and grounds it in the time and legacy of the Jim Crow laws in the U.S. In short, he deals with a number of difficult and sensitive questions that come up in social justice and social work classrooms. In the Canadian higher education context, this is still an important work to include in the social work curriculum, as the U.S. history and legacy of slavery is a shared one. This is not, however, a social work text per se; Davis makes a few references to the helping professions, primarily as lacking the necessary insight and recognition into the structural and systemic causes of race-related social problems. Therefore, Davis’ important work should be considered in a variety of disciplines, such as history, psychology, sociology, equity studies, Black/African studies and race-relations courses, and even biography/memoir-writing courses.