Simien - Dear white people: a guide to inter-racial harmony in post-racial America

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Copyright 2014 by Justin Simien

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Atria Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First 37 Ink/Atria Books hardcover edition October 2014

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Illustrations by Ian OPhelan

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Simien, Justin.

Dear white people : a guide to inter-racial harmony in post-racial America / Justin Simien. First 37 Ink/Atria Books hardcover edition.

pages cm

1. WhitesUnited StatesHumor. 2. Race awarenessHumor. I. Title.

PN6231.W444S56 2014

818'.602dc23 2014034580

ISBN 978-1-4767-9809-7

ISBN 978-1-4767-9810-3 (ebook)

Dedicated to those precious, easily offended few who will courageously take to online comment sections, Twitter, and other semi-anonymous forms of communication to express outrage over this book after having read only its title. Without you I could not sell as many books, and my name would not be as well known.

[When] Black and Third World people are expected to educate white people as to our humanity... the oppressors maintain their position and evade their responsibility for their own actions. There is a constant drain of energy which might be better used in redefining ourselves...

Audre Lorde

Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they dont know each other; they dont know each other because they can not communicate; they can not communicate because they are separated.

Martin Luther King Jr.,
Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story , 1958

D EAR WHITE PEOPLE. Its a catchy title. Catchy but curious, I must concede, and one I imagine you, dear reader, responding to in a number of ways. If youre white, you may walk past this book thinking, Finally, a manifesto of all the ways Ive been marginalizing my ethnic friends! Or, perhaps, Fabulous. Another piece of self-deprecating irony I can place on the new coffee table I bought for my trendy loft in a recently gentrified part of town! If your knee-jerk reaction, however, is something like This book exemplifies why minorities should not be allowed to have opinions! , then you may either be a ghost from the Civil War, or the educational system in your county has left you unprepared for the contents of this book.

Another reaction Ive encountered while making the film-festival circuit with my movie of the same name comes in the form of Why should white people be addressed in this manner at all? How are their opinions in any way helpful in fostering a sense of self for people of color? To this person, I say, Youre right, my brother. And thus concludes this book. Black power.

In all seriousness, did you notice what I did at the beginning of this introduction? I just stereotyped you, dear reader. I boxed you into a rigid assumption for the purposes of convenience and humor. For starters, this introduction assumed you were either white or black. This was out of pure laziness convenience. If youre a member of neither race, youre probably in a group being marginalized for some reason or another and, therefore, will hopefully be able to relate. Silver lining!

Second, if youre white, being blatantly stereotyped can be such a foreign or rare experience that it can be taken with grave offense. The Internet eloquently calls this being butthurt, or deeply offended by something petty. If youre a couple pages in and already butthurt, this is going to be a tough read for you. Your feelings are valid but you may be blind to your own white privilege, in which case I say put this book down, go forth, and enjoy your whiteness! There are so many more organic ice cream flavors to try, and so many employment opportunities to enjoy without suspicion from coworkers who surmise you just got the job because of your race!

More often than not, however, white people laugh at white stereotypes as a bit of nonthreatening humor because most white people are innately aware that opinions about white people from books like Stuff White People Like and shows like Portlandia pose little threat to their daily lives. Despite this book, white people will still be able to enjoy Vespa scooters without comment and properly conjugate words without anyone being surprised.

For black folks, being stereotyped is nothing new, but it typically can have a very real impact on their daily lives, even when it comes in the form of well-meaning gestures and questions from their white friends or colleagues like, As a Black Person, why do you think people talk back to the screen in movies? These are called microaggressions. Its not lynch-mob racism, but being spoken to or even treated in a kind way because of an assumption about your race by a member of a race that on the whole has cultural, political, and economic control can feel unsettling.

The title Dear White People represents the exasperating, sometimes funny, sometimes enraging process of navigating race in the so-called post-Obama age. An age where racism remains alive and well despite the assumption of far too many people that racism ended around 2008 with Obamas election. While its true the book is partly organized by a list of things white people should know on behalf of black people,other, you will enjoy this book! I suppose I couldve saved us both the trouble of this introduction and just called my book something else. But honestly, if I had titled it something along the lines of Ruminations on Race: Essays on Identity from an African American Perspective, which, frankly, it is, then we both would have fallen asleep. Just now. And as Ive discovered in recent months, falling asleep while writing is, surprisingly, not an effective method for finishing a book.