Crystal Marie Fleming - How to Be Less Stupid About Race: On Racism, White Supremacy, and the Racial Divide

PRAISE FOR HOW TO BE LESS STUPID ABOUT RACE BY CRYSTAL M. FLEMING

Fleming upbraids us all (herself included) for our ignorance about race, but her breathtaking (and wig-snatching) lessons assure that racial illiteracy has a cure. By page 15 of this book you are already supremely smarter, having learned all the terms you need to sound knowledgeable, and by page 20, you wont be as susceptible to making common mistakes in racial thought. Along the way you will surely laugh, and by the end you may even find yourself listening to black women! Dont be stupid about race. Buy this book.

Vilna Bashi Treitler, author of The Ethnic Project:
Transforming Racial Fiction into Ethnic Factions

Crystal Marie Fleming is one of the most forceful sociological voices of this new generation. How to Be Less Stupid About Race is a brilliant contribution to the long African American tradition of bridging dark humor with social critique. Fleming has written a timely analysis of systemic racism and white supremacy that is both deadly serious and seriously funny. With its deft mix of satire, memoir, and empirical evidence, her book is a groundbreaking model of public scholarship and sure to be an instant classic. Everyone needs to read this book, and I for one will assign it in my classes!

Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, former president of the American
Sociological Association and author of Racism Without Racists:
Colorblind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America

How to Be Less Stupid About Race is the perfect combination of Racism 101, critical race theory, and powerful analysis, woven with Dr. Crystal Flemings personal journey from racial naivet to one of the most incisive critics of white supremacy. Anyone who wants a straightforward education on race, racism, and white supremacy should buy this book immediately. Dr. Fleming minces no words in her exposition of racism in both the Obama and Trump eras. This bold and brave book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand white supremacy in the United States.

Tanya Golash-Boza, author of
Race and Racisms: A Critical Approach

Bold... and irreverent... How to Be Less Stupid About Race is an explosive book revealing the roots and nature of racism in our psyche, our interactions with each other, our institutions, our politics, our media, our gender relations, and even our love lives.... While racism is based on power and economic inequalities, it is also anchored in ignorance and stupidity. If Americans are willing to initiate the long journey of eradicating racism, they must wipe away the ignorance that sustains it.

Aldon Morris, author of The Scholar Denied:
W. E. B. Du Bois and the Birth of American Sociology

Well, damn! I wrongly assumed How to Be Less Stupid About Race would be a how-to guide for naive Kumbaya-singing and colorblind folks. My bad. This is a bold, carefully researched, and intimate take on the race conversation that points the finger at all of us: Yes, even those of us who know what intersectional means. Yes, even those of us who voted for Obama. Yes, even us Obama voters who know what intersectional means and have all Black friends. Beyond finger-pointing, it also offers solutions so we can hopefullyfinallythrow off our racial dunce caps. For those looking for a distinctly smart, humorous, and intellectually challenging read on a much-needed complex racial conversation, How to Be Less Stupid About Race is essential reading.

Angela Nissel, author of The Broke Diaries and Mixed

Dr. Fleming offers a straight-no-chaser critique of our collective complicit ignorance regarding the state of race in the United States. In particular, she calls out the lack of resolve, especially among the political class, to admit and address the generational damage caused by institutional racism. This book will leave you thinking, offended, and transformed.

Nina Turner, former Ohio state senator

This book is dedicated to my students,
for helping me become less stupid
about a whole lotta things.

It is an aspect of their sense of superiority that the white people of America believe they have so little to learn.

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR .

H undreds of years after establishing a nation on colonial genocide and chattel slavery, people are kinda-sorta-maybe-possibly waking up to the sad reality that our racial politics are (still) garbage. But as our society increasingly confronts the social realities of race, we are faced with a barrage of confusing developments. How could the same country that twice voted for an Ivy Leagueeducated black president end up electing an overt racist who can barely string together two coherent sentences? Why do white liberals who cant even confront their Trump-supporting friends and family members think they can lead the Resistance? Democrats who didnt care about mass deportations or the treatment of Muslims under Obama suddenly care now that a Republican is in charge. While black and brown people are being crushed by systemic white supremacy, the rapper Common thinks we can all get over race by extending a hand in love. With so much racial ignorance in the world, how will we ever find our way to that glorious mountaintop Martin Luther King Jr. glimpsed right before a white racist killed him?

Although race is an inherently divisive topicthe cause of continual controversy, Facebook feuds, and endless debatethere is exactly one thing and one thing only that we can probably all touch and agree on regardless of our racial or ethnic identity, gender, age, political beliefs, or shoe size:

We are surrounded by racial stupidity.

From the White House to Waffle House, from the classroom to the internet comments section, from the television to the tiki-torch aisle of your local Pier Onewe are surrounded and, at times, astounded by the ignorant and dangerous ideas people express about this thing called race.

Why are so many people so incredibly confused and misinformed about race? Its the white supremacy, stupid! As Ill demonstrate throughout this book, one of the main consequences of centuries of racism is that we are all systematically exposed to racial stupidity and racist beliefs that warp our understandings of society, history, and ourselves. In other words, living in a racist society socializes us to be stupid about race. Of course, as you well know, some people are more afflicted by racial stupidity than others. Well get into the nature of these variations a bit later. For now, I want to emphasize just how widespread and ubiquitous racial ignorance truly is. Politicians routinely spout racist distortions of reality and lie about the existence and nature of racial oppression. Absurd racial stereotypes pervade our various forms of media. And as noted, textbooks systematically misrepresent racial history in ways that minimize or erase racism altogether, and, all too often, teachers themselves are undereducated or miseducated about the history and ongoing realities of racial oppression.

How to Be Less Stupid About Race explores precisely how and why racial stupidity has become so terribly pervasive and examines the cesspool of silly ideas, half-truths, and ridiculous misconceptions that have thoroughly corrupted the way race and racism are represented in the classroom, pop culture, media, and politics. The key idea that Ill come back to again and again is that living in a racist society exposes us all to absurd and harmful ideas that, in turn, help maintain the racial status quo. Drawing from my own experience as an educatorand as someone who continually confronts my own racial ignoranceIll also share some concrete steps that you (as well as your racist friends, ignorant family members, and clueless coworkers) can take to become