WHITE RAGE: THE UNSPOKEN TRUTH OF OUR RACIAL DIVIDE by Carol Anderson ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

(Original review written June 30, 2020)

This book will enrage you. And it should.

Like many other people right now, most likely other white people, I'm coming across this type of book way too late. But I'm here. And it's time to do the research, to do the learning to help where I can, and to make-up for not doing anything about it before.

The book goes back to the Civil War and its aftermath, building an informative look at decades of horrid actions that led to the issues of racism and inequality that persist today. Anderson makes a calculated, unforgiving account founded in facts, while ensuring the emotion at the core is felt through the information. Because this topic isn't about reading for pleasure. It should bring you awareness to act upon - there are lives at stake if we repeat the mistakes of history.

It's hard not to imagine what things would be like if any one of the roadblocks and injustices illustrated in the book had failed. What if Andrew Johnson hadn't tried to reverse all the progress built in the Emancipation Proclamation? What if the Supreme Court, and all courts for that matter, had shot down the cases based in white supremacy and human rights violations before making their slow crawl towards enacting constitutional justice? And what if all the people acting in insecurity, fear, and hatred had taken the effort to understand the Black community and their strife over centuries of wrongdoing? The path toward an equal society where those of different race hold each other up was attempted numerous times, only to be cut down by an unrelenting menace: white rage.

I became furious and angry reading this, from learning the sides of history I thought I knew, and from learning the atrocities I never did. There's so much to unlearn that has been imprinted on us from generations of complacency and avoidance of touchy issues and conflict. But one of the first steps to unlearning is to educate yourself.

This is a perfect place to start.