All the White Friends I Couldn't Keep

October 1, 2021

With We Should All Be Feminists, award-winning, multi-million-copy best-selling MacArthur author Adichie offers an illustrated journal that guides readers on their own feminist journeys. Arce, who worked hard to suppress her accent after immigrating to the United States from Mexico only to be told You Sound Like a White Girl, now rejects assimilation as an illusory and ultimately racist goal meant to keep her from belonging and instead argues for honoring one's culture; currently, she's collaborating with America Ferrera to develop Ferrera's My (Underground) American Dream for television (75,000-copy first printing). Following up 1999's No. 1 New York Times best-selling The Freedom Writers Diary, which inspired a film starring Hilary Swank and an Emmy award-winning documentary, Dear Freedom Writer is a compilation by contemporary Freedom Writers and teacher Gruwell of 50 more stories representing a new generation of high school students. As musician/activist Henry looks back on All the White Friends I Couldn't Keep--they thought he wasn't sufficiently polite when discussing racism or doubted it even existed--he argues that social justice will be achieved not through civil conversation or diversity hires but more direct ways of disrupting racial inequality and violence. With The Antiracist Deck, No. 1 New York Times best-selling antiracism champion Kendi presents not a book but a pack of 100 cards, each with a conversation starter--When did you first become aware of racism? When did you first become aware of your race? What does "resistance" mean to you? --meant to get people talking. In On the Line, Pitkin recalls working as a newly hired organizer for UNITE, an international garment workers union, to unionize Arizona's industrial laundry factories with the help of a second-shift immigrant factory worker pseudonymously named Alma Gomez-Garcia. A political reporter for the Daily Beast who has spent the last several years tracking QAnon, Sommer explains what it is, why it has gained traction, what dangers it poses, and how to shake adherents loose from its dogma in Trust the Plan (100,000-copy first printing). Chief economics correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, Timiraos argues in Trillion Dollar Triage that the pandemic did not result in economic collapse owing to the efforts of Jerome H. Powell, chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (60,000-copy first printing). New York Times reporter Williamson's Sandy Hook reveals the ongoing tragedy of the killing of 26 people--including 20 children--at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012, with the parents of young victims harassed online, stalked, and even shot at and the very truth of the massacre denied by a group of conspiracy theorists whom she sees as profit motivated.

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from January 24, 2022
In this rousing debut, singer-songwriter Henry mines his painful experiences talking with white people about anti-Black racism to chart a path forward for racial justice activists. Rebuking white people who are too firmly rooted in anti-Blackness to make “good neighbors to Black people or valuable partners in the pursuit of racial justice,” Henry tells the story of his political and spiritual transformation in response to the Black Lives Matter movement and the heated discussions he had with white friends and fellow churchgoers about it. For example, the author recounts falling out with a white family that Henry had considered like kin after they refused to acknowledge anti-Black racism following the Ferguson uprising. Then there’s “white Jesus,” one of the friends Henry decided he couldn’t keep after his former theology schoolmate claimed “racism is not a priority to God,” leading Henry to rediscover his faith in Assata Shakur’s inclusive vision of activist religion. Full of fiery encouragement and prophetic hope, Henry argues that Black people have a right to be angry about anti-Blackness even if it means making white people uncomfortable. A timely declaration from an exciting voice, this is sure to inspire those in pursuit of radical change.

March 1, 2022

Henry, a singer-songwriter and host of the podcast Hope & Hard Pills, writes an honest, painful autobiography, about one Black man's journey to awareness, self-definition, and renewed identity amid the Black Lives Matter movement and the struggle against white supremacy in the United States. As the title attests, this is the story of choosing to end relationships made toxic by micro-aggressions, stubborn ignorance, and persistent defense of a white status quo that devalues Black lives. Henry begins his narrative very embedded within white American narratives and institutions. He has white friends from church and seminary; some close enough to consider family. However, as his eyes are opened to the realities of violence and discrimination against Black Americans, he begins to raise his voice in the fight against anti-Blackness. But as his awareness grows, he finds his white friends attempting to silence him, to defend racist views and systems, and to generally suck the life out of his attempts to make meaningful change. VERDICT This is a book full of difficult choices, about choosing not to waste energy trying to convince those willfully entrenched in racist narratives, during a personal and historic struggle for meaning, life, and Black joy.--Zachariah Motts

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 1, 2022
A powerful examination of White assumptions about Black people and the obstacles that stand in the way of social justice. "One way or another, the white world tries to convince people--even Black people--that there's no need to organize for racial justice like Black Americans have always done." So writes Henry, an activist and columnist for Religion News Service. Sometimes the argument takes the form of "racism is not a problem here." As the author observes, this usually hinges on negative definition--e.g., we're not racist in New York because we're not Southerners, or we're not racist in the South because we don't belong to the KKK. Henry embarks on a searching exploration of unspoken beliefs about Black people. In the company of the family of longtime White friends, he looks into the thesis that there is "some extraordinary violent impulse unique to Black people," voiced by one family member who became a police officer. A second encounter with the family occurred when they asked that politics not be discussed at the table, to which Henry responds, "When white people demand the privilege to sit comfortably in restaurants and theaters...without having to consider the violence that pervades their society...they invoke a consumer-capitalist tradition that stretches back to colonial times." A fellow seminarian ventured the thought that slavery wasn't so bad, since some slaveholders were nice folks; another White interlocutor encouraged Henry to "get all the facts" surrounding the death of Philando Castile. After presenting these cases and others, Henry demonstrates how White people can be allies, first by not declaring themselves to be so but instead awaiting acknowledgment of that status by Black people. He also encourages a kind of separatism. "Black people may need to rethink the fight for the proverbial seat at the table in white institutions," he writes. "We need tables of our own." Wise, essential instruction for all who seek redress for the inequalities that persist in America.

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