Customer Reviews

Overcoming Our Racism: The Journey to Liberation

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There is no greater healing for the spirit than the healing of the divisions within ourselves. This is the huge task taken on deftly by Derald Wing Sue in Overcoming Our Racism. The book is addressed directly to white people though it is beneficial to anyone interested in improving race relations. Sue calls to task those white people who are unintentional racists, those people who have unconsciously bought into and act out racist ideas in subtle ways. He does an excellent job of outlining what white privilege is and how all white people benefit from it. In relating the pain people of color suffer, he illuminates the pain that is caused for white people when they are confronted with their whiteness. Most white people are in denial of their "whiteness" because of the unpleasant truths they would have to face. Sue shows that all of us (meaning white people too) defining ourselves as racial/cultural beings is instrumental to overcoming racism.

Throughout the book, Sue states that the (white) reader might get angry, feel guilty or experience unpleasant feelings. He encourages the reader to go through the process to the end for the rewards are great. Sue explains that while people of color have soul wounds connected to racism, white people do too. Racism keeps white people from seeing what is real. While people of color have prejudices, white people have the power to use their prejudices to oppress others. In oppressing others, they create for themselves an undeniable advantage that they keep in denial. And they deny themselves of the experience of being all that they can be by denying this right to people of color.

Instead of seeing a person of color for who he or she really is, a white person tends to rely on the false perceptions they form from the media and their environment. Most people of color are forced to interact with white people on a daily basis, while most white rarely deal with people of color on an equal-to-equal basis. While most white people do not actively engage themselves in getting to know or understand people of color, most people of color understand white people as a matter of survival.

Racism is defined in distinct and concrete terms. For people of color, institutional racism is obvious. For white people, because they benefit directly from institutional racism, they are complacent about doing anything to change it. Sue's book is divided into two parts. Part One clearly defines the problem while Part Two outlines how to overcome the problem. The keys to changing the effects of racism lie in the hands of white people. It will take a great amount of inner work on the part of white people for there to be real change. Overcoming Our Racism is a handbook for doing this work.

Derald Wing Sue is an Asian American professor. He moves the focus of racism from being black/white to being a truly multicultural discussion. The subtitle of this book says it all: Overcoming Our Racism: The Journey to Liberation

As a white male working in a student affairs office at a very diverse community college it is important that I take a good long look at myself to be sure I am serving our students the best way I can. This book is incredibly helpful in doing that. Did I get pissed off at things Mr. Sue talked about? Yes, of course. But he does warn his readers that they will get angry. I only got angry because I didn't want to believe what he was saying was about me, but it is. This book taught me a lot about myself, which I think is the point. I highly recommend this book to anyone that is willing to keep an open mind and is willing to go through some self evaluation.

One of the problems that this book addresses is the fact that quite a lot of white people have a hard time comprehending others' attachment to a strong racial and/or ethnic identity. Since so few use whiteness as a source of identity (and those that do are usually loathsome!), white folks like myself are inclined to see something suspicious in celebration of, say, black culture or Latino community. This is compounded by decades of violent history and harsh rhetoric, a culture that encourages contemptible treatment of immigrants, and (let's face it) quite a lot of smoldering class conflict. I'd go on more about these things, but the book does a better job of it than I could.

Unfortunately, Dr. Sue's analysis of the problem and the solution falls prey to a similar myopia, but in another direction. The book is unwilling to take seriously the possibility that some people may truly not want a strongly asserted racial identity. Instead, it zeroes in on theories and anecdotes suggesting that (usually but not exclusively white) desires for a post-racial identity are dangerously self-deceptive at best and a cynical cover for sinister motives at worst. Sue asserts that white people really do have a complex set of cultural ideas associated with whiteness that they rarely question or consciously think about. While I can't really argue with that (and some of the examples the book cites as evidence hit hard), Sue's reasoning becomes dubious when he argues that the inevitable outcome of honestly confronting and questioning those assumptions is the creation of a (non-racist, but...) strongly asserted white identity. Just as many white people can't understand why others would want to overtly embrace black, Latino, etc. identity, this book can't understand how anyone could consciously question the subconscious beliefs of their society and afterwards still be uninterested in an overtly asserted racial self-identification. Reasons for avoiding such white self-identification are caricatured when they are mentioned at all, and the possibility that some may avoid them for their role in getting us all into this mess is not given consideration.

While many of the problems addressed in this book are real and serious, the solution that it advocates lies too close to the problem.

Ok, I bought this book even after reading a review that complained about just more "white guilt". Well it was true, the couple of chapters I managed to get through were sadly reminiscent of the 70s where if you were white you were supposed to admit that you were a racist. And I understand all that BUT, I've been around for well over half a century and I'm pretty sure I've come to grips with my "Racism", not that I can't always improve.
HAVING SAID THAT... I passed the book on to a collogue with whom I am working and she rather liked the book -- Especially the questionnaire sections. Although some of the questions are trite, she thinks we can use it to stimulate some conversation. So, we'll see.

It's unfortunate that this book is so bad. It has so much potential and is taking on a very important topic. We need intellectual champions in the fight against racism in this country. What we don't need is someone who doesn't know the difference between productive conversation and mudslinging. If I wanted blind name calling I can watch Fox news. The problem with this book is that it doesn't benefit from the last thirty years of research in the field of social psychology. Prejudice is based on schemas and heuristics, a natural tendency of human beings to create overly simple representations of the world and how it works, in their mind. This is a very helpful skill which allows us to go into unfamiliar situations and bring our past experience to bear on the present. But schemas also make it more likely that we will treat large groups of objects, including people, as if they are all the same. But here is the thing about schemas. The more threatened you are, the more likely you are to activate schemas. Not only that, but people are more reluctant to change their schemas if they feel attacked. They may even become more entrenched in their beliefs. This is social psychology 101, but evidently, Dr. Sue either doesn't know that or doesn't care. Either way, his is not a helpful contribution to the field because he concludes that just about everyone who is white in America is, in fact, a racist. How unhelpful. He then goes on to develop a model of racial identity development that is more diatribe than anything remotely resembling fact. Most folks never do any of the things he attributes to normal development. It would be laughable if so many rubes weren't listenting to him. He is not as harmful to this country as Rush Limbaugh, but he is not far off. If he could create something resembling a reasonable development arch, or if he could talk about a continuum of bigotry that would allow for a discussion of how we as a people could behave more productively, that would be great. As it is, this is just another avenue to learned helplessness and those of us white folks who actually care about this issue are left demoralized and hopeless. Is that what he was trying to do?

Overcoming Our Racism is an excellent perspective by Dr. Sue who is Asian. It seems that only certain minorities are always called on as using the race card. Sue points out clearly that we have lived and still live in a racist America. A selective perception and sutble type of racism reminicant of "Jim Crow", but nevertheless present in American attitudes towards people that are not Anglo. Sue, a psychologist, presents a very informative view of racism in America. The book is used as part of a graduate course in Universities that teach cultural diversity. To many the surge of Senator Obama to a significant lead in the Democratic Primary election may seem like a turning point for Americans and it may well be part of a history in the making. Nevertheless, the attitudes described by Sue are not part of everyone's perception, but still those attitudes are present and doing damage to human kind.

If there is a God in Heaven, Nirvana or anywhere else, It will be kind enough not to force me to read another pile of manure that the Sue brothers write. He and his brother don't do their research well- 4th edition of their 'class-sick' still gets basic facts wrong- and Sue writes this for the most cretin-like caucasians possible. So, if you crack your gum, think that Michael Jackson was just the coolest black man ever, and wonder how people can buy a Cadillac while collecting welfare checks, PLEASE READ THIS BOOK.
If you are a smug, self-righteous liberal that thinks about social ills and oppression and believe that people like you just need to keep gathering and discussing the proper way to liberate all people so that they can live a comfortable semi-middle-class lifestyle and thus make the world happy, please read this book over and over so that you don't have much time to work, procreate, or talk to anyone who doesn't agree with you.
If you read, have a brain, and can formulate an opinion... never, ever bother with the palp, tripe, drivel of the Sue brothers. Save a tree or find a book where the tree that died can know that it died for a good cause. The Sue brothers slaughters trees for no good purpose. Shame on them!

This is one of the best books ever....I noted that a women said that we complain about racism in this country and do not truly understand what discriminate is...I am grasping that she was European America(i.e. White Ethnic, White, Fair Skinned whatever you want to call it)....I ask you this have your people ever been inslaved for nearly 400 years, have your people ever had attempts of racial/cultural genocides...Is it deeply ingrained in society that your people are lazy, inferior intellectually, etc....You would not even begin to understand, Typical White Person Syndrome...Don't Walk around stupid your whole life....
FYI...This is just the tip of the iceberg, I would love to intellectually cruise your stupid ideals, you don't begin to know sufferings...Continue to read some books and maybe you can something from them...

I came to America from a country that was so violent it made the worst black ghetto look like a national park. My family was abused, tormented and casted aside like street trash.

Now I come to America and I hear voices crying out against racism. I'm inclined to agree, as I've experienced racism. However, the American definition is different. It basically means "Whitey is evil. He holds everyone down. Everyone else is ok, but white people are bad"

Nice to see that the people who march against racism are able to acknowledge all forms of racism. Oh wait...they don't.