Frederick Joseph’s The Black Friend: on Being a Better White Person first came to my attention when I read a story about a young African American woman who suggested a voluntary reading of the book, aimed at younger readers, and a number of offended white people accused the book and all involved of being racist. I’ve been trying to read more on the subject of anti-racism, cultures other than my own, and a few other similar subjects. My general philosophy is if I don’t know something, I should try to read a book on the subject. It’s not the same as living through something, but it’s helpful.
Besides, I’ve read books for lesser reasons than one made someone upset. I figured I should check this one out.
As I said above, I have been trying to read more on the subject of anti-racism, so the central ideas here are not necessarily new. They amount to basics like listening to people when they tell you that you did something racist whether you intended it that way or not, don’t make negative assumptions about people based just on their appearance, try to get to know people, and don’t make foolish statements like how you supposedly don’t see color. These are good ideas. What sets Joseph’s work apart is his presentation: he is the “Black friend” who will tell you why you should or shouldn’t do certain things, in part because he has lived through plenty of occasions where white people often didn’t. He also takes the time to highlight the (pitifully few) times white people did the right thing by him during his life. His stories are set largely in his childhood and college years, and he offers plenty beyond stories of things that went badly, such a music recommendations and names to look up.
Now, as much as I felt like I had heard the ideas in Frederick’s book before, I did really like his presentation. This would be a good book for a younger audience. True, the title and intent suggests that anyone reading this probably is interested in self-improvement. I work in education, and many of my students are People of Color. I have never had their experience, so I need to know if something I may say or do could hurt someone before I do it. It makes their experience in the classroom better, and that makes learning better for everybody involved.
Now, I have been reading a lot of anti-racism books as I said above, and it does occur to me that racism is, on the individual level, about holding inaccurate or bad ideas about other people and races. The systemic and institutional stuff is in many ways a whole other, bigger problem, but on the individual level, it’s just holding an inaccurate idea, and there’s a good chance everyone has a few of those. The benefit of books like this is it can help the reader (hopefully) realize the problematic things they may believe and try to do something about it. It’s a lifelong challenge, but so is all learning and the process of trying to do better in every way. That strikes me as important work.
So, give this book a try for a less formal attempt to do this sort of thing as the reader’s Black friend explains things that should be obvious, but if they were, well, we wouldn’t need books like this.
Grade: A-
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