Reni Eddo-Lodge's 'Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race' tops UK charts

Reni Eddo-Lodge's 2017 book 'Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race' has made her the first Black woman since Michelle Obama to top the UK bestseller lists. The 31-year-old London journalist began the conversation with a 2014 Facebook post declaring she would no longer engage white people in discussions about race, specifically structural racism. The book opens with a preface explaining this decision and includes chapters on Black British history, structural racism, white privilege, and intersectional feminism. Eddo-Lodge defines structural racism as systemic prejudice embedded in everyday spaces rather than just institutions, citing examples such as a 2009 Department of Work and Pensions study showing job applicants with English-sounding names were hired more frequently than those with Asian or African surnames, and that Black men in psychiatric hospitals receive double the antipsychotic medication doses of white patients. She argues 'reverse racism' is impossible because racism requires power to limit lives. The fifth chapter critiques the whiteness of feminism, using Lena Dunham's series 'Girls' as an example of a celebrated feminist show lacking Black representation. The book ends with a seventeen-year-old girl's question about when change will come, emphasizing the need for uncomfortable confrontation.