What White People Can Do Next

paperback

ISBN:: 978-0-14-199673-8

(1 review)

We need to talk about racial injustice in a different way: one that builds on the revolutionary ideas of the past and forges new connections.

In this incisive, radical and practical essay, Emma Dabiri - acclaimed author of Don't Touch My Hair - draws on years of research and personal experience to challenge us to create meaningful, lasting change.

2 editions

Fionnáin reviewed What White People Can Do Next by Emma Dabiri

A sharp polemic essay on 'whiteness'

3 stars

In What White People Can Do Next, Emma Dabiri presents a framework for coalition that draws from 20th Century theory (James Baldwin, Audrey Lorde, WEB Du Bois) and 21st Century posthumanist philosophy (Bayo Akomolafe, Ware & Back). The result is playful but cutting, and carries Dabiri's unique style of polemic argument with humour.

The book is short, and could have had a little more input from the author herself alongside the histories and theory she uses. While the sections are well threaded together, at times the stories she uses are cherry-picked to prove a point, so don't quite hit home. But in the end, the book serves as a hopeful offering of how race can be dealt with if we can learn to untangle the messy history of 'whiteness'.