White Privilege - The Myth of Post-Racial Society

I received a DIGITAL Advance Reader Copy of this book from #NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

From the publisher -

One of the major features of politics in the past few years has been a renewed attention to race as a driving factor in both politics and everyday life. How, after decades of civil rights activism, do people from black and minority ethnic communities continue to be marginalized? In White Privilege, Kalwant Bhopal draws on social science research and political and economic analysis to show how people from black and minority backgrounds are continually positioned as outsiders in public discourse and interpersonal interaction. Neoliberal policies only increase that tendency, as their effects exacerbate long-standing patterns of minority disadvantage. Bhopal’s book is rooted in dispassionate analysis, but its message is unmistakable—the structural advantages of whiteness are widespread, and dismantling them will require both honesty about their power and determination to change them.

First off, I will admit I had to look up what Neoliberalism was (it is a buzzword you hear left, right and center lately) -- will you as be confused as I was after reading this definition?

Neoliberalism as a dimension of globalization - at an economic level, neoliberalism is linked to globalization, especially as it relates to the ‘freedom of commerce’, or to ‘free trade’. In this sense, neoliberalism is a particular element of globalization in that it constitutes the form through which domestic and global economic relations are structured. Yet, neoliberalism is only one dimension of globalization, which is to say, it is not to be seen as identical to the phenomenon of globalization as such. ( http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02680930500108718)

The book explores Brexit, and the US understanding of “whites and whiteness” - Racism is so rife in the US (and my home country of Canada) that we rightly feel shamed by some of our fellow citizens’ behaviours towards people of colour. There are well-written and excellently researched chapters on all factors of how (in MY words, not the author’s) whites get all the breaks, both in England and world-wide. Should you feel guilty if you are white by the time that you finish this book? Heck ya!

No matter how well the book is written it is very dry and scholarly so if you are looking for a quick read this is not it. I will give it 3.5 rounded up to four stars for its content as it is hard for a WASP to read and not feel ashamed to be in the same skin-colour group as the racists, neo-Nazis and other miscreants who are white like I am.