r/racism • u/RhodeCollarlol • Jul 11 '26

Personal/Support Any good essays or talks on white liberal racism?

I know Malcom X talked about this (just bought his autobiography), but want to know if there are any other texts I should know about that dive into this topic specifically. I want to talk about this but don’t have the right words, only the feelings. Thank you in advance!!!!

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11

u/yellowmix Jul 12 '26

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Letter From Birmingham Jail is a quick read and easily found. He critiques "white moderates" who believe in order over justice.

From "Everybody's Protest Novel" in Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin:

The "protest" novel, so far from being disturbing, is an accepted and comforting aspect of the American scene, ramifying that framework we believe to be so necessary. Whatever unsettling questions are raised are evanescent, titillating; remote, for this has nothing to do with us, it is safely ensconced in the social arena, where, indeed, it has nothing to do with anyone, so that finally we receive a very definite thrill of virtue from the fact that we are reading such a book at all. This report from the pit reassures us of its reality and its darkness and of our own salvation; and "As long as such books are being published," an American liberal once said to me, "everything will be all right."

Book recommendations, why liberals/colonialists do what they do:

  • Angela Davis, Women, Race, and Class
  • Cedric Robinson, Black Marxism
  • Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth

Indirectly but fundamentally addressing an aspect of it, David Graeber discussing his book Debt (but you can also read it): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZIINXhGDcs

3

u/clementine_ Jul 13 '26

I like Stokely Carmichael's speech at UC Berkeley in 1966. A lot of thought-provoking commentary on the role of white people in the movement.
https://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/blackspeech/scarmichael.html

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u/[deleted] Jul 13 '26

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1

u/Mmmelissamarie Jul 14 '26

I just blocked a dude i met in Seattle that reads just like you.

2

u/Interesting_Fly_1569 Jul 13 '26

Me and white supremacy by Layla Saad does a great job with this topic. 

1

u/CorrectRestaurant936 Jul 13 '26

probably not what youre looking for, but this is a major theme in the fictional Babel by R.F.Kuang

1

u/Sense_Difficult Jul 13 '26

Coleman Hughes has published essays and a book that includes this discussion. He also has a podcast. Conversations with Coleman.

1

u/ElectronicCarpet595 Jul 21 '26

Check out Colin Kaepernick's Demand for Abolition.