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White Rage
White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide | Carol Anderson, Ph.D.
126 posts | 79 read | 6 reading | 199 to read
New York Times Bestseller. National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist. A New York Times Notable Book of the Year. A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of the Year. A Boston Globe Best Book of 2016. A Chicago Review of Books Best Nonfiction Book of 2016. From the Civil War to our combustible present, acclaimed historian Carol Anderson reframes our continuing conversation about race, chronicling the powerful forces opposed to black progress in America. As Ferguson, Missouri, erupted in August 2014, and media commentators across the ideological spectrum referred to the angry response of African Americans as "black rage,?? historian Carol Anderson wrote a remarkable op-ed in the Washington Post showing that this was, instead, "white rage at work. With so much attention on the flames,?? she writes, "everyone had ignored the kindling.?? Since 1865 and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, every time African Americans have made advances towards full participation in our democracy, white reaction has fueled a deliberate and relentless rollback of their gains. The end of the Civil War and Reconstruction was greeted with the Black Codes and Jim Crow; the Supreme Court's landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision was met with the shutting down of public schools throughout the South while taxpayer dollars financed segregated white private schools; the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 triggered a coded but powerful response, the so-called Southern Strategy and the War on Drugs that disenfranchised millions of African Americans while propelling presidents Nixon and Reagan into the White House. Carefully linking these and other historical flashpoints when social progress for African Americans was countered by deliberate and cleverly crafted opposition, Anderson pulls back the veil that has long covered actions made in the name of protecting democracy, fiscal responsibility, or protection against fraud, rendering visible the long lineage of white rage. Compelling and dramatic in the unimpeachable history it relates, White Rage will add an important new dimension to the national conversation about race in America.
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Adventures_of_a_French_Reader
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Pickpick

Very important and instructive book that everyone should read.
It describes the systematic backlash measures used against black emancipation in the United States, some of which still have a detrimental effect on the country.

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WanderingBookaneer
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WriterAtHeart
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Mehso-so

Took a moment today to read "White Rage" to continue to help understand the plight of POC through learning more about history. I especially enjoyed the chapter on education since Brown vs. Board of Ed. case given that I am a teacher. It has given me some new things to talk about with others.

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dariazeoli
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I‘m posting one book per day from my ever-increasing TBR. No description. No explanation. Just books to read. Join the fun if you want.

Day 32.

#fromthetbrstacks

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Godpants
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Pickpick

Wow. Mandatory reading.

Riveted_Reader_Melissa That‘s a great book!! 4y
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Godpants
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I know this is not going to be an easy read, so I‘m hoping to balance it by reading a few chapters between some fiction.

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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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A great book that‘s on sale on kindle in the US today! I highly recommend it!

For those who read One Person, No Vote with me in #SheSaid, this book is JUST as good!

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megnews
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I‘ve not read this yet but I just bought this #kindledeal. I‘ve read good reviews about it. On sale today for $2.99.

Riveted_Reader_Melissa Great book! 4y
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vlwelser
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Pickpick

This author is amazing. It's not hard to believe that she's a university professor. I wish she had been one of mine. Her books are incredibly detailed without getting bogged down with minutia. I learn things and she makes me think.

I read this for my IRL #bookclub. It was my pick, actually.

#BookSpinBingo square 3
@TheAromaofBooks

TheAromaofBooks Great progress!! 4y
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crazyspine
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Pickpick

I think there are going to people who read this and think it's conspiracy stories because the stories she tells are so horrific, it's difficult to imagine that they could possibly be real. Out of the many antiracist books, I've read this summer, I think this one had the biggest impact on me.

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amma-keep-reading
Pickpick

Concise, well researched telling of the history of race "relations" and politics in America. Highly recommend.

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night_shift
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Pickpick

This was absolutely gut-wrenching and eye-opening. In a way, I was already aware of a few of these things, but the extent and degree are incredibly troubling. We need to do better, so much better. If you haven't read this: do it. It shows a history that you probably were never taught, especially if you grew up in the south.

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Lillie
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A book that should be read in school! There's so much I didn't know whether by omitted history taught throughout K-12 or by my own lack of seeking knowledge outside my comfort zone. I had/have the privilege to ignore anything that discomforted me. Time for me to step up. #blacklivesmatter

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alisonrose
Pickpick

Shameful that ppl who most need to read this are the ones least likely to. There‘s a lot in here I was largely aware of, but details & context were enlightening. The coldly calculating ways that past iterations of white society & gov‘t oppressed & endangered Black Americans for trying to attain equality were so morally repugnant, & the effect is still felt & perpetuated today. Wish it was more in depth in parts, but informative & important. 4/5 ⭐️

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alisonrose
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alisonrose
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alisonrose

To Southern leaders who had already been readying their political arsenal, the decision in Brown [v. Board of Education of Topeka] was but a declaration of war.

[I was going to say, “Imagine this being the mindset regarding Black kids going to school with white kids.” But sadly, this exact kind of thinking is still clearly on display today, over six decades later.]

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sebrittainclark
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Pickpick

5/5

I learned so much about past and recent American history. It was really enlightening about some of the ways I had been misinformed about the Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras of American History. This is a great book if you want to understand how racism is institutional in the U.S.

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alisonrose
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Traitors during the Civil War and traitors ever after. JFC.

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alisonrose
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cajunsyd Vile. What a dark history we have. 4y
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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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Today‘s #Recommendsday for a #BLMReadingList is White Rage. A great book that does a great job of covering a large amount of material in a clear concise way and does the very important job of explaining how it isn‘t the protestors or rioters who are reacting in anger, it‘s the other half who flip out when asked to do “little” things like integrate, allow voting, or for the police to stop indiscriminately profiling them. Seems topical right now.

Megabooks I‘m on the library list for this. 4y
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alisonrose

The truth is that, despite all this, a black man was elected president of the United States: the ultimate advancement, and thus the ultimate affront.

[N.B.: I always capitalize Black (re: people) but the author does not do so in this book, so I‘m going by her choice when quoting.]

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alisonrose
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I‘ve had this on my radar for a while. No time like the present, that‘s for sure. #nowreading #blm

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night_shift
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Starts soon! I'm still reading White Rage (about halfway though.. it's a tough read), but I wanna watch the chat! Go check it out: https://youtu.be/K6MtnbWbwDI
#blackoutbuddyread #blacklivesmatter

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Lillie
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My library holds came thru for curbside pick up. You wouldn't even believe how excited I was! My reading for the next week:

~White Rage by Carol Anderson (non-fiction)
~The Glass Room by Ann Cleve (detective fiction)
~The Moor's Account by Laila Lalami (historical fiction)
~Washington Black by Esi Edugyan (historical fiction)

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Floresj
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Pickpick

Great book explaining the history of systematic racism in our country and it‘s impact on intertwining portions of society. I definitely felt rage while reading this book- at the way in which we allowed the racism to spread, take root, and grow. It‘s going to take a lot to undo this- and it‘s not just the South that‘s culpable. Get out and vote for Biden in November.

Riveted_Reader_Melissa Such a great book! 4y
BookishMarginalia Yes, vote! 4y
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StellarDoc
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Morning reading. I'm learning things I was never taught in history classes.

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jackilynn
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Pickpick

Not an easy read to stomach but truly eye opening. There is so much that the history books leave out or simply gloss over. This book made me angry and broke my heart. We as humans need to do better.

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jackilynn

"Whatever happens in America's classrooms during the next fifty years will eventually happen to America." ??

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BooksAndTea97
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This book is so good and so well written. I found out about it through Blackout buddyread on Twitter and I am so happy I did.
I was aware about the situation in the USA and I can say that I know a thing or two about it's history even though I never set my foot there, but this book gave me a lot of new information. I expected it to be more aggressive but it's not. It's really a good book depicting inequality in the USA.
I highly recommend it.

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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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I rarely do #FriYayIntro but this is inspired

1. So many good books:
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
Kindred by Octavia Butler
The Color Of Law by Richard Rothstein
White Rage by Carol Anderson

2. Black Klansman
The Free State Of Jones
Roots

3. ACLU, not only for this but a bunch of other issues. Bail out funds, etc.

4. Keep an open mind, keep learning more, and be willing to expand your understanding of the issues.

alisiakae Thanks for joining in with some excellent suggestions! 4y
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Brewychock48

Just started this yesterday. Very eye opening. Very informative and a good read

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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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Pickpick

I picked this book up & started reading it in April, then I put it back down & didn‘t touch it again until Sept. It‘s an in-depth, intense, frustrating succinct & disturbingly accurate history of race relations with African Americans in the U.S. from the start until today. I‘ve read books that focused on parts of the problem, specifics snapshots of time, but this is the first book to brilliantly bring all that together into a complete picture! ⤵️

Riveted_Reader_Melissa A #MustRead and you‘ll be happy to know I‘ll stop spamming your feed with quotes now and go decompress in some fun fiction for a bit. 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa #Scarathlon one book completed, again humans are more terrifying and scary than any monster....but hey, one book with a black cover for the #ScaryScavengerHunt later #TeamStoker @TheReadingMermaid 5y
LauraJ Those were totally worth “spamming”. 5y
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BeansPage As well as 1 point for the book and 1 point for the post 😉 🧟‍♀️ 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa @BarbaraTheBibliophage Thank you so much for this wonderful tough book! Sorry it took me so long to make my way through it! #NFBuddyRead (edited) 5y
BarbaraTheBibliophage I‘m glad you got a lot out of it, @Riveted_Reader_Melissa ! I knew you would, of course. Sorry I haven‘t been here much to discuss as you were spamming my feed! I‘ll try to go back through soon and comment. I‘m sure you and I were struck by similar passages. (i.e., the whole damn book!) 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa @BarbaraTheBibliophage Exactly! I could have posted almost the whole book it was so good. Sorry I fell way behind on our buddy read along. Any idea what you want to read next? 5y
BarbaraTheBibliophage @Riveted_Reader_Melissa Ah, no worries. I need to revisit the list ... unless you have a preference! 5y
BarbaraTheBibliophage But probably thinking November not this month ... what do you think? 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa Works for me! And November sounds good! @BarbaraTheBibliophage (edited) 5y
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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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One of my favorite comebacks was Jon Stewart to Bill O‘Reilly ....as he was railing against giveaways and socialism, Jon reminded him that he grew up and was raised in Levittown, a suburb for returning servicemen (only white returning servicemen) where the housing was subsidized and purchased cheaply, and now resold for gains in family wealth. But you know, “it‘s not the same”🤦‍♀️

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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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😟

night_shift Yeah, I saw this crap happening when I lived in Texas. Absolutely ridiculous. All states should adopt how it's done here in Oregon: mailed ballots. No need to go a anywhere 🤷‍♀️ 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa @UnidragonFrag I agree! I wish we had that here too. I‘m in PA, heavy Trump area, and I can hear the arguments against it already and how “votes would be stolen”🙄. Seriously though, you‘d have to raid a LOT of mailboxes to make an impact, that would hardly go unnoticed. 5y
night_shift No kidding. It's a stupid argument. Pretty sure the risk is more than the reward in this sorta situation. In PA? Huh, for some reason, I thought most of that area was pretty liberal, but I guess there's dummies everywhere. I mean, people think Oregon is some liberal wonderland, but that's literally just Portland. I grew up in Texas and have met more racist, Trump-loving, Confederate flag waving folks up here. 5y
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night_shift It's bizarre. 5y
night_shift Also, pretty sure I haven't heard of any votes being stolen up here, so it clearly works fine 🤷‍♀️ 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa @UnidragonFrag From what I‘ve read, in this book and others, the calls for voter fraud is really a read herring, the actual percentage of it happening is infinitesimally small, but it makes a great rallying cry to make voting harder and stricter. And yes, the bigger cities in PA tend to be more liberal, I live in the middle, in a rural farm belt, lots of confederate flags here too, you‘d think we were in Alabama.🙄 5y
night_shift It's incredibly annoying and unfair. 😞 I mean, what? They just want to go back to white land owners only? I mean, probably, actually. *sigh* 5y
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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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“...around an election or two.”

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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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😱

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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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I always knew that FL was one of the worst states for denying ex-felons the right to vote for years after they served their time...they have to wait 14 years after all their sentencing requirements are completed and then petition the governor to restore their voting rights. Which is crazy for any citizens who has paid their dues, but that includes felonies for letting a helium balloon float up in the air and walking in a construction zone! 😱

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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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As I watch the Ukraine call news, and now our abandonment of our Kurdish allies... I‘d say he‘s accomplishing his goals and then some. 🙁

Bookwomble Trump is some kind of one-man pestilence upon the face of the earth! 5y
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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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Oh god, I want to finish this today....but I‘m at the afterward, added to the paperback AFTER the election.

Book dilemma: Put it down to process / recuperate or just rip off the bandaid and finish it now!😱

Tough tough call!

I‘m going in....

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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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😢. More than ever I can see why people need to run for office at all levels of government local, county etc... because this level of disenfranchisement starts locally.

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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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🙄 if you thought deep down that the fix was in and the deck was stacked against you, this will make you realize just how deep that feeling really goes.

DrexEdit Those same Republicans in the WI assembly are busy today passing rule changes that give them unlimited attempts to override a democratic governor's veto. They are apparently not happy unless the deck is always stacked in their favor. 😠😠😠😠😠😠😠 5y
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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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“... a utility bill. More than 20% of African Americans, as compared with 3% of whites, do not have a bank account.” “almost 6% of all families in the United States are in multigenerational households. (...) Regardless of the number of adults in a home, only one name appears on the utility bills, making it difficult for the others to prove they actually live there.”

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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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Suet624 Ouch. So distressing. 5y
DrexEdit It's a solution to a problem nobody was having! 😠😠😠😠 5y
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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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”legitimate-sounding, noteworthy concern: protecting the integrity of the ballot box from voter fraud. Still, Paul Weyrich, a conservative activist and the founder of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), was explicit early on: “I don‘t want everybody to vote,” he said, noting that the GOP‘s “leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”” “That is where ALEC stepped in to draft “model...” cont.⤵️

Riveted_Reader_Melissa ...”voter-ID legislation … that … popped up in very similar form in states like Pennsylvania and Texas and Wisconsin.”” ***Now where did Trump win, just enough votes to take him to an electoral college victory, without the popular vote again? 🤔 Pennsylvania and Wisconsin! And in case you‘re wondering this book was published in May 2016, before he won. (edited) 5y
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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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Oh Lindsey Graham! 🙄

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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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...”finance the Contras. Congress, meanwhile, already stung by the debacle in Vietnam, was not about to loosen the purse strings. And so, at a December 1981 meeting, Contra leaders, whom Reagan referred to as the “moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers,” floated the idea that trafficking cocaine into California would provide enough profits to arm and train the anti-Sandinista guerrillas. With most of the network already established, ...”(cont⤵️)

Riveted_Reader_Melissa This is honestly the most succinct explanation of how the Iran-Contra Scandal led to Mass Incarceration that I‘ve seen to date. (Cont⤵️) 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa “... the plan was rather straightforward: There were the Medellín and Cali cartels in Colombia; the airports and money laundering in Panama run by President Manuel Noriega; the well-known lack of radar detection that made landing strips in Costa Rica prime transport depots; and weapons and drug warehouses at Ilopango air base outside San Salvador. The problem had been U.S. law enforcement guarding key entry points into a lucrative market.”... 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa “.... But with the CIA and the National Security Council now ready to run interference and keep the FBI, the U.S. Customs Service, and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in check, the once formidable line of defense had dwindled to a porous nuisance. Reagan‘s “moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers” was now ready to saturate the United States with cocaine.” 5y
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Riveted_Reader_Melissa “.... But although they had the product, they didn‘t yet have the distribution network to move the initial shipment of cocaine into the retail markets. That came only when they managed to link up with Rick Ross, an illiterate yet entrepreneurial black man who became the conduit between the Contra drug runners and the Crips and Bloods gangs in L.A. The result was nothing less than explosive.”... 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa “... While the new self-created drug crisis threatened the security of millions of African Americans, the administration focused its efforts on facilitating greater access to weapons for the rebels purchased with off-the-books money. In 1982, Vice President George H. W. Bush (the former director of the CIA) and his national security adviser, Donald Gregg (a former CIA agent), worked with William Casey to run a program named Black Eagle,...” 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa “... which was designed to circumvent Congress and funnel weapons to the Contras. As the logistical pipelines solidified, it became clear that Manuel Noriega would be essential to this operation. Through a series of top-secret negotiations, U.S. officials worked out landing rights at Panamanian airfields for the Black Eagle planes to transport weapons to the Contras and the use of Panamanian companies to launder money.”... 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa “Noriega, who was already in a four-hundred-million-dollar partnership with the Medellín cartel, seized on the profitability of this deal with the White House and began to divert Black Eagle planes and pilots for drug-running flights to the southern United States. The Reagan administration‘s response to what should have been seen as a diplomatic affront—especially since the president had tapped George H. W. Bush to lead the drug interdiction...” 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa “... activities in South Florida—was telling and disturbing. The administration simply required the Panamanian president to use a percentage of his drug profits to buy additional weapons for the Contras. Thus, although Reagan bragged to the American public about using U.S. military resources “to cut off drugs before they left other countries‘ borders,” his staff‘s shielding (...) allowed cocaine imports to the US to skyrocket by 50% within 3 yrs” (edited) 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa “... The Reagan administration‘s protection of drug traffickers escalated further when the CIA received approval from the Department of Justice in 1982 to remain silent about any key agency “assets” that were involved in the manufacturing, transportation, or sale of narcotics. This network of White House protection for major drug traffickers swung into full gear once Congress (...) shut off all funds to the Contras and banned U.S. material....” 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa “... and financial support for the overthrow of the government in Nicaragua. Undeterred by the law, the Reagan administration simply ramped up the alternate and illegal streams of revenue it had already devised: drug profits and arms sales to Iran. At this point Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, deputy director of the National Security Council, stepped in to create the larger, more dynamic operation that would soon replace Bush‘s Black Eagle.”... 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa ... “North brought to the work both a military efficiency and a truly amoral focus. Years later, even when under congressional klieg lights, he seemed to imply that the breaking of laws was appropriate. “I remain convinced that what we tried to accomplish was worth the risk,” he said. North understood that his role, working with his CIA counterpart Duane Clarridge, was to ensure that the Contras had weapons.”... (edited) 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa “... Congress had cut off all funding, so profits from cocaine would have to become an alternate source. That warped framing of the Contras‘ needs led North to facilitate the trafficking of cocaine into the United States, which included working with the CIA to transport 1,500 kilos of Bolivian paste; diverting hundreds of thousands of dollars in “humanitarian aid” to indicted narcotics traffickers; and refusing to pass the names...” 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa “... of known drug runners on to the appropriate authorities. He also saw to it that the millions of dollars in profits from the sale of narcotics were then funneled safely out of the U.S. and that those funds went to arms dealers, especially in El Salvador and Honduras, who could equip the Contras with everything from boots to grenades.” 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa ^Usually we talk about this & how our gov‘t brought in the drugs, enabled the traffickers, while creating mass incarceration to deal with the victims who became addicted to these drugs. But I think this one is also related to the current flux of refugees who are fleeing the violence of gangs in Central & S. America that are using the guns, tactics, etc that we gave them. Both mass incarceration & the refugee crisis caused by this warped scheme. 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa “the administration‘s response was not to fund a series of treatment facilities but to demonize and criminalize blacks and provide the federal resources to make incarceration, rather than education, normative.” ... ““Despite our best efforts,” Reagan added with a hint of shock and dismay, “illegal cocaine is coming into our country at alarming levels.””...”Reagan identified public enemy number one: “crack.”” 🙄 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa ...“No one, he intoned, has the right to destroy the dreams and shatter the lives of the “freest society mankind has ever known.” In this important speech, the president not only laid out an epic tale of good, freedom-loving Americans locked in a mortal battle for the nation‘s soul against crack addicts and drug dealers, but in doing so, he also defined the racial contours of this war.” 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa ...”As battles over lucrative drug turf escalated, black communities were besieged with rampant gang violence. Most had no idea how this crack scourge had arisen or how those who had once toted simple handguns now carried AK-47s and other automatic, military-grade weapons. It was clear immediately that something had gone horribly wrong.”🙄. 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa ^So hey, we can tie in our gun issues to this little side-scheme too!🙄 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa “In 1986, Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which stipulated mandatory sentencing, emphasized punishment over treatment, and created the 100-to-1 disparity in sentencing between crack and cocaine based on the myth that the cheap narcotic rock was more addictive than its powder form.” 5y
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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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...”staff on the National Security Council (NSC) along with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). In these last throes of the Cold War, Nicaragua was the target. But the collateral damage would spray South Central Los Angeles and then radiate out to black communities all across the United States.”

Ah...the “War on Drugs”, this today makes me think about the current “War on Illegal Immigration” both caused by, & blaming the victims of, bad policy

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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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🙄🙈