Book Review: Waking Up White: And Finding Myself In the Story of Race by Debby Irving (Elephant Room Press) 2014, Cambridge MA. 273 pages.
“We have a choice to make: resist change and keep alive antiquated beliefs about skin color, or outgrow those beliefs and make real the equality we envision. Self-examination and the courage to admit to bias and unhelpful inherited behaviors may be our greatest tools for change. I believe the most loving thing a person, or a group of people, can do for another is to examine the ways in which their own insecurities and assumptions interfere with others’ ability to thrive.” —Debby Irving (page 249)
In this book that is more than memoir, Debby Irving uses the example of her own life and its specific context as a lens to examine culture-wide beliefs that remain invisible to too many of us. As an adult, she spent 25 years doing “diversity” work, coordinating outreach efforts from her Boston suburbs, and later, teaching in diverse schools. She was haunted, however, at the lack of success of these efforts and her continued feeling she may be doing more harm that good. Her own waking up occurred as she took a graduate course on Racial and Cultural Identities. However, the reader needs no specialized knowledge to follow her as she negotiates her learning; Irving weaves the story of her growing awareness with a good serving of specific examples, reference to research, data, history and verifiable facts, all of which are readily available to anyone willing to spend a little time digging past the time-worn assumptions that lie hidden until we apply the kind of intentional attention she invites us to.
Structurally, the book’s chapters each end with a query that prompts readers to examine their own assumptions and the origin of the beliefs they may have been carrying around all their lives. These queries invite reflection, journaling—and when possible, sharing.
A group of us in Lexington are reading the book together, which provides us with companionship through surprises and astonishments, chagrin and the facing up to sometimes painful truths. In our group, the interaction of our individual stories helps us see the depth of racism’s malignant corrosiveness. One participant in our group, an immigrant from Africa, tells us “I was not black until I came to the United States.” I’ve read anti-racist analysis that says America is uniquely obsessed by classifying people racially, but having a friend relate his own experience brings that truth sharply into focus. Reading this book in a group of friends makes startlingly clear the truth of Irving’s statement: “Racism is, and always has been, the way America has sorted and ranked its people in a bitterly divisive, humanity-robbing system.”
As she comes to terms with the way this system has robbed people of their humanity, Irving does not stint on examples of her own emotional struggles. For example, the night she learned about the unfair hand racism dealt generations of African Americans through real estate and lending practices of redlining and blockbusting, she needed to drive around for a while in an attempt to process the information. When she returns home and her husband asks her “what’s up?” she describes the process of systematic discrimination that shut out potential African American home buyers from “good” homes in neighborhoods where their investments would increase dramatically in value, resulting in huge gains in personal wealth. At first, he doesn’t believe her: but ten minutes into an internet search has converted him into a believer. “How could we not know this?” is a refrain through this part of the book: she says she feels “duped” that the results of these policies are not far better known. When she sets down the results of those policies in summary, the facts almost take my breath away:
“Between 1934 and 1962 the federal government underwrote $120 billion in new housing, less than 2 percent of which went to people of color. America’s largest single investment in its people, through an intertwined structure of housing and banking systems, gave whites a lifestyle and financial boost that would accrue in the decades to come while driving blacks and other minority populations into a downward spiral. ... From the perspective of Americans excluded from this massive leg-up policy, the GI Bill is one of the best examples of affirmative action for white people.” (page 35)
Later chapters in the book take readers through strategies to begin changing themselves and negotiating ways to connect with others on the journey to both understanding racism and working towards healing its harms. She has sections on inner work and outer work, for example, acknowledging that tackling racism is not a one-time accomplishment, but instead a commitment to growth and change in often surprising ways.
The work is essential, however. I was chilled by her story of the deep depression and regret that seemed to come over her father at the end of his life, which happened at a time when she lacked the skill to invite a deeper understanding between them. Though she grew up in a family committed to being good people and doing the right things, she recalls childhood vignettes that hint at times when he may have been in a position to stand up against the racist practices he found around him, and yet could not bring himself to do so. She writes:
“My guess is that in the world of corporate law, country clubs, and Boston institutions, going against the status quo must have felt to threatening to a man providing for a wife and five children living a high-class white life, especially when his own mother had invested so much in his social climb. His love for his fellow human beings he may have wanted to use his privilege to reach out to was outweighed by his his fear of losing his privilege by doing so.”
Irving ends this book with a section called “Tell Me What To Do!” in which she gives us both good news and bad news: “The good news is that everyone can do something to loosen racism’s hold on America. The bad news is that unless you set yourself up for success, trying to do something helpful can actually perpetuate racism. Take time to learn and engage with the problem in order to lower the chances of making the same mistakes I did.”
(contributor note: Gail M. Koehler is a trainer with Lexington United: Building Community Cooperatively www.lexingtoncommunitybuilding.org)
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