Carol Anderson's White Rage 2: The Final Showdown

Murray Purdie: A Disturbing book in a good way. Complacency and not paying attention to what’s going on has allowed people like me to perpetuate a sad life on people who needed help and support. The footnotes are windows into the matter.

Canada on Jul 06, 2021

Dave Perryman: I felt I had to review this book, based on the clear and well presented factually accurate and narrative describing the nature of US centric Racism, its history and its almost DNA like embedding into the US Culture from the Civil War onwards to present day.
If you want a clear picture of White Political oppression based on classic divide and rule tactics this book describes it and defines it clearly. By Defining the outcomes of the US Civil war and the supposed reconstruction methods used to supposedly alleviate Black oppression, the book describes the ongoing modus operandi of White political mechanics, essentially racist and divisive that pervades both Northern and Southern States. Without being Rabid , Moralising or being inflammatory the Author sets out the case and defines a clear line from then till now.

There is no clear answers at the end of the process, and the author in one sense feels that the line of White Racism will continue regardless with Trump being the latest incumbent to promote it. However it does speak out against this all pervasive and destructive force endemic to US culture, with a clear voice for White people to hear if they want to listen.

United Kingdom on Jan 13, 2021

Renee: A factual and frightening account of the lengths that certain elements of white culture have resorted to in order to preserve their existence.

Germany on Sep 04, 2020

Adam Shields: White Rage is not particularly long. It does not talk about everything, but instead gives an overview of five historical movements. We all know the history of the the events before these movements of White Rage, but the importance of Carol Anderson’s book is the framing of the story as Black gains then White rage.

The five movements pairs are, 1) end of slavery and reconstruction with the backlash to reconstruction and ‘redemption’. 2) The great migration pairs with the (White) race riots of the late 1910s and early 1920s. 3) Brown v Board with the anti-integration movement. 4) Affirmative action and the anti-affirmative action policies. 5) Obama’s election and the movement toward voting restrictions. These are not definitive for all of the examples of White Rage in US history but emblematic. And like what Jemar Tisby pointed out in Color of Compromise, each one was less overt and more subtle than the last, but still rooted in racism.

One of the aspect that keeps coming up in histories of reconstruction and the Jim Crow era is the relationship of arguments around states rights and racism. I know many people that are ideologically oriented toward...

United States on Apr 27, 2019

Nambu: Anderson's fine volume should join Nancy Isenberg's "White Trash" and Arlie Russell Hochschild's "Strangers in Their Own Land" on the bookshelf of everyone who is dissatisfied with simply condemning white resistance to changes they see within American society. "White Rage" is a solid examination of the sources of that rage that has surfaced with unpleasant frequency in violence and racist rhetoric. Anderson helps us to see where it comes from, so that we might somehow deal with it.

Japan on Oct 07, 2017

Freh: White Rage Book Review

The author was prompted to write this book by the usual framing in terms of black rage of discussions of police shootings of several unarmed black men. She had the epiphany that what was really at work was white rage, which didn’t have to wear sheets, burn crosses, or take to the streets. It achieved its ends far more effectively by working the halls of power, including the courts, the legislatures, and government bureaucracies. The trigger for this white rage, inevitably, was black advancement, which was resented on its own accord but also viewed as a threat to white privilege. The book begins with a brief discussion of the divisions over slavery leading to the Civil War and a somewhat more detailed discussion of the hundred year Jim Crow era after the Civil War.

Soon after the Civil War, efforts to reconstruct the South with governments that included and rehabilitated former slaves collapsed entirely. The Jim Crow era began when President Andrew Johnson blocked many provisions to help former slaves and pardoned leaders of the old Confederacy so they could be reinstated to run state governments as they pleased. The Supreme Court ruled that...

United States on Aug 24, 2017

Marnie Sluman Somers: This book CONFIRMED my fear and suspicion that America is still fighting the Civil War. It provided the facts that every time progress in advancing civil rights has been achieved, and a step forward is taken, white rage rears its ugly head and does its utmost to defeat that progress and push it two steps back. I am appalled that after the promise of hope in electing a black president, white backlash is once again spewing hate and pushing the country two steps back. I am ashamed of being white. We have so much to atone for in our treatment of other races - African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics, and the list goes on. I fear America will never become as "great" as it could or should be.

Canada on Apr 03, 2017