Life & Times Books

White Fragility. Why It’s So Hard for White outlawed on the ‘ground [s] again demonstrates the power of stories People to Talk About of colour, race, or ethnic or national origins’ principally from his mixed race, working- Robin Diangelo in public places in Great Britain.1 The Race class background. His narrative is wide- Penguin Books, 2018, PB, 168pp, £8.99, 978- Relations Act 1968, extended the provisions to ranging from empire and slavery to Nelson 0141990569 employment, housing, and public services. It Mandela, Fidel Castro, and the Ku Klux Klan. has been likened to a UK civil rights moment. He talks about the declining numbers of white Natives. Race & Class in the Ruins of In the inner city St Paul’s district of , people, which appears to be causing real fear Empire the riots of 1980 arose as a consequence in Trump’s heartlands in the US. This is a Akala of racial tensions between black members thoughtful but challenging book that should Two Roads, 2019, PB, 343pp, £8.99, 978- of the community and the police, including be read by white communities. There is an 1473661233 concerns over ‘Sus laws’,2 poor housing, and extensive bibliography and each chapter is alienation of black youth. referenced in detail. With encouragement and advice from my I live in Bristol and am a retired GP having adult children I have recently read two books served a largely white population on a large that have helped to inform and educate my council housing estate; one of the many understanding and attitudes. forgotten areas of deprivation. These books Robin Diangelo is a white American have helped me understand more clearly the academic sociologist who has worked as a structural and institutional aspects of racism diversity trainer across the US. She describes that help to maintain and white fragility as not just defensiveness and superiority. I now understand that people of whining, but the inability of to colour have to think about racism every day of tolerate racial stress. This, she says, leads their lives whereas I rarely have to. I am also to them being indignant and defensive when struck by how such an obvious and important LEARNING FOLLOWING THE TOPPLING OF confronted with racial inequality and injustice. fact of the world had been invisible to me. COLSTON’S STATUE White fragility is the outcome of white people’s Bernardine Evaristo, the 2019 Booker Prize winner, recently stated that white people need On Sunday 7th June 2020 the eyes of the socialisation into and a to be a party to the discussion about race and world were on Bristol when the statue of means to protect, maintain, and reproduce not just consider it to be a BAME issue. Edward Colston was toppled and pushed white supremacy. She helps the reader to Here in Bristol the mixed-race elected into the harbour during protests in support understand that this way of seeing the world Mayor has, since the Colston event, set up of Black Lives Matter. Although he was a isn’t restricted to ‘bad people’. the Bristol History Commission, so that philanthropist, Colston was involved in the Her book is full of illuminating stories from Bristolians can discover the diverse and . Bristol has a dark history her diversity workshops that illustrate the problematic background that has shaped of involvement in the slave trade, which has phenomenon. She unravels white claims like: this historic city. This has never been done been an issue for this historic maritime city ‘I marched in the sixties’; ‘I know people of before and hopefully it will help to foster for many years. colour’; ‘you’re being racist against me’; and understanding and heal wounds. The Bristol Bus Boycott of 1963 arose from so on. Although this book is written by an the refusal of the American for white people, its message is Paul Main, to employ black or Asian bus crews in the useful for British citizens of all diversities. Retired GP, Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer, School city. At the time, there was widespread racial of Social and Community Medicine, University of discrimination in housing and employment NATIVES. RACE AND CLASS IN THE RUINS Bristol, Bristol; Emeritus Deputy Director & Associate Postgraduate Dean, Severn School of Primary Care, against so-called ‘coloureds’. A boycott of OF EMPIRE Health Education South West. the company’s buses by Bristolians lasted The second book by Akala is an engaging Email: [email protected] for 4 months until the company backed down mixture of autobiography and a political and overturned their discriminative colour history of Empire. He is a famous rapper This article was first posted on BJGP Life on bar policy. and poet, the child of a British Jamaican 14 October 2020: https://bjgplife.com/white-fragility This boycott is considered to have been father and a Scottish mother, who despite DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp20X713789 influential in the passing of the Race Relations no education after his GCSEs, has lectured Act 1965 — the first legislation in the UK at many universities, spoken at the Oxford to address . The Act Union and given TED talks. This book yet REFERENCES 1. Parliament of the United Kingdom. . 1965. https://www. “...white people need to be a party to the discussion legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1965/73/pdfs/ ukpga_19650073_en.pdf (accessed 6 Nov about race and not just consider it to be a BAME 2020). issue.” 2. Wikipedia. Sus law. 2020. https://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Sus_law (accessed 6 Nov 2020).

604 British Journal of General Practice, December 2020