Olivia: In 2020, a book first published three years earlier suddenly outsold every other book in the UK. It wasn't a new thriller or a celebrity memoir. It was a book by a Black British author with a title so provocative, it sounds like it’s ending a conversation, not starting one. Jackson: Whoa, that’s a heck of a comeback story. A three-year-old book hitting number one? That usually only happens if it gets turned into a huge movie. What was the title? It must have been something pretty powerful to cause that kind of a stir. Olivia: It’s definitely powerful. The book is Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge. And what’s fascinating is that this whole, widely acclaimed, award-winning book started as a blog post in 2014. It wasn't a calculated manifesto; it was a raw expression of her sheer frustration and burnout. Jackson: Okay, now I'm hooked. So why stop talking, only to write a whole book about it? That feels like a major paradox. You declare you're done with a conversation, and then you invite the entire world to have it with you. What's going on there?

Olivia: That paradox is the perfect place to start, because it gets right to the heart of her argument. She wasn't trying to be contradictory. The initial decision to stop talking was an act of what she calls "self-preservation." She was exhausted by the emotional labor of it all. Jackson: Emotional labor. I hear that term a lot, but what does it actually mean in this context? What did those conversations feel like for her? Olivia: She describes it brilliantly by referencing a documentary called 'The Color of Fear.' In the film, a group of men from different racial backgrounds are at a retreat, trying to discuss racism. The men of color are trying to explain their lived reality, and they become more and more emotional, some even breaking down in tears, as they try to get through to one of the white men. Jackson: And what does the white man do? Olivia: He just stares back, completely oblivious. He’s confused by their pain, sometimes even ridiculing it. He can’t see the system they’re describing. For him, racism is just individual acts of meanness. He’s emotionally disconnected. Eddo-Lodge says that’s what so many of her conversations felt like—an endless, draining effort to convince someone of a reality they couldn't or wouldn't see, all while having to manage their defensive feelings. Jackson: Wow, that sounds incredibly draining. It’s like trying to describe the color blue to someone who insists the sky is green, and then having to comfort them because they’re upset that you disagree. Olivia: Exactly. And she realized that in these discussions, people of color are often expected to censor themselves, to bite their tongues to get ahead, or to speak their truth and face the consequences. She quotes, "It’s truly a lifetime of self-censorship that people of colour have to live." So, she decided to opt out. It wasn't weakness; it was setting a boundary for her own mental health. Jackson: That makes a lot of sense. The title isn't an attack, it's… a boundary. It's a form of self-care. But that still leaves the big question: why write the book? What changed her mind? Olivia: The reaction to the blog post was the catalyst. She was flooded with messages. From people of color, the response was overwhelmingly one of gratitude and relief. They said, "Thank you for finally putting words to something I've felt my whole life." But the reaction from many white people was different. Jackson: Let me guess. Defensiveness? Anger? Olivia: Some of that, sure. But more surprisingly, a lot of it was sadness and guilt. Messages saying things like, "Please don't give up on us," or "How can we learn if you won't talk to us?" And in that, she saw the communication gap in action. Their response, while well-intentioned, centered their own feelings of guilt rather than the core issue she was raising. Jackson: Ah, so they were proving her point without even realizing it. Olivia: Precisely. And that’s when she realized the paradox was the solution. She couldn't keep having those one-on-one, emotionally draining debates. But she could create a tool. The book is her way of saying: "Here is the conversation. Here is the history, the context, the evidence. You do the work of reading it. The labor of the initial education is now on you." It’s not her talking to them anymore; it’s them listening.

Jackson: Okay, so the book is a tool for self-education. What's the first thing she says people need to learn? Where does the lesson begin? Olivia: It begins with history. She argues that the conversation about race in Britain is stuck because most people are missing the entire first chapter of the story. We tend to think of racism in an American context—slavery, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights movement. But Britain has its own deep, and often deliberately forgotten, history of race and empire. Jackson: I can see that. When I think of British history, I think of kings and queens, Shakespeare, the World Wars. The role of race isn't usually front and center. Olivia: And Eddo-Lodge says that’s by design. She uses a powerful quote from the academic Ambalavaner Sivanandan: "We are here because you were there." The presence of black and brown people in Britain is a direct result of the British Empire. But that history, and the racism that came with it, has been largely erased from the national story. She tells these incredible, often brutal, stories to fill in those gaps. Jackson: Like what? Can you give an example? Olivia: One of the most powerful is the Bristol Bus Boycott of 1963. This was a full year before the Civil Rights Act passed in the US. In Bristol, the state-owned bus company had an open policy of not hiring any black or Asian drivers or conductors. It was a formal color bar. Jackson: A formal policy? In the 1960s? That's shocking. Olivia: It is. The local union even supported it. The general manager, a man named Ian Patey, was quoted saying things like, "You won’t get a white man in London to admit it, but which of them will join a service where they may find themselves working under a coloured foreman?" It was completely overt. Jackson: So what happened? How did they fight it? Olivia: A young Jamaican man named Guy Bailey applied for a job and was turned down because he was black. An activist named Paul Stephenson used this as a test case. They called a press conference and organized a boycott of the entire bus system. For months, the city's Caribbean community, along with supportive students and locals, refused to ride the buses. They walked for miles, they cycled, they organized their own transport. The pressure mounted, it became a national story, and after four months, the company caved. The color bar was broken. Jackson: I've heard of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott a thousand times, but I had absolutely no idea there was a successful bus boycott in Bristol. That’s a huge piece of history to be missing. Olivia: And that's her point. This isn't just a story about a few mean people. This is what she means by "structural racism." It wasn't just one racist manager; it was the company's official policy, supported by the workers' union, and accepted by much of the city. The entire system was set up to exclude. Jackson: Right, so when she says 'structural' or 'institutional' racism, that’s what she means. It’s not just a person being prejudiced, it’s the whole architecture of the system being biased. Olivia: Exactly. And she connects it directly to the landmark case of Stephen Lawrence, the black teenager murdered by a racist gang in 1993. The subsequent public inquiry, the Macpherson Report, was a watershed moment because it officially concluded that the police investigation had failed due to "institutional racism." It gave a name to the problem—the collective failure of an organization to provide a professional service because of someone's color or culture. It’s the system itself, not just the individuals within it.

Jackson: Okay, so if the racism is structural, baked into the system like that, it must mean some people benefit from it, even if they don't realize it. Is that where the concept of 'white privilege' comes in? That term can be so loaded. Olivia: It is, and Eddo-Lodge knows that, so she explains it with a brilliant, non-confrontational analogy from her own life. For a while, she had a long commute and decided to cycle part of the way to save money. Suddenly, she was lugging her bike up and down endless flights of stairs at train stations. She was infuriated, thinking, "Why are there no ramps or lifts? This is impossible!" Jackson: I can feel that frustration. Olivia: But then she had a realization. Before she had the bike, she never once thought about the lack of ramps. As an able-bodied person, the system worked fine for her. She was oblivious to the daily, exhausting struggle faced by parents with strollers, elderly people, or wheelchair users. Their struggle was invisible to her because she didn't share it. Jackson: That’s a fantastic analogy. So white privilege isn't about having an easy life or being handed everything on a silver platter. Olivia: Not at all. She defines it as "an absence of the consequences of racism." It's the privilege of not having to think about your race. It's the absence of the structural barriers, the negative assumptions, the constant micro-aggressions that people of color navigate daily. It’s the ramps being there for you, so you don't even notice they're missing for others. Jackson: That makes so much more sense. It reframes it from an accusation—"You have it easy!"—to an observation about what you don't have to carry. It's about the system, not the individual's bank account. But that leads to another tough area she covers, right? Feminism. How does this connect to her critique of the feminist movement? Olivia: She applies the same logic. She describes how she was an ardent feminist, but she kept running into a wall in mainstream feminist spaces. She saw white feminists who could clearly see the problem with an all-male panel of experts, but were completely blind to the problem with an all-white TV show being celebrated as the voice of a generation. Jackson: You’re talking about the controversy around the show 'Girls,' right? Olivia: Yes. She points out the hypocrisy. If feminism is about dismantling oppressive structures, you can't just focus on patriarchy and ignore the structure of white supremacy that runs parallel to it. For women of color, these systems intersect. They experience a unique form of discrimination that is both racist and sexist, and she argues that white-centric feminism often erases that reality. She says she doesn't want to be "included" in the existing system; she wants to "deconstruct the structural power" of the system itself. Jackson: Wow. So she's calling for a much deeper, more radical kind of change. Which brings me to the final, crucial question. If, as she says, racism is a "white problem" rooted in these structures and privileges, what's the solution? What are people actually supposed to do?

Olivia: Well, the first thing she makes clear is that there's no simple, ten-step checklist. And anyone looking for a neat "end point" to the conversation is missing the point. She tells a story about speaking at a college where a white student asked, "When will we get to the end point?" Later, a black student came up to her and said, "The people who want to skip to an end point are the ones not really affected by the issues." Jackson: That’s powerful. The desire for a quick resolution is itself a form of privilege. Olivia: Exactly. So the work is ongoing and uncomfortable. She argues that true anti-racism isn't performative. It’s not about posting a black square on Instagram or sharing a news story about a tragedy in another country just to show you're aware. She points to the social media reaction after the 2015 Paris attacks, where suddenly a seven-month-old story about a horrific attack at Garissa University in Kenya went viral. Jackson: I remember that. People were pointing out the disparity in media coverage and public grief. Olivia: Right, but her point is sharper. She says, "Solidarity is nothing but self-satisfying if it is solely performative." The people of Garissa needed that solidarity back in April, not in November as a way for Westerners to feel better about their own social awareness. Genuine anti-racism is about consistent action: donating to causes, challenging racism in your own family or workplace, and amplifying marginalized voices, even when it's not trending. Jackson: So it's about taking responsibility. It’s about white people recognizing that since the system was built to benefit them, they have a central role and a moral responsibility to help dismantle it. Olivia: That’s the core of it. She concludes that racism is a white problem. It reveals the "anxieties, hypocrisies and double standards of whiteness." And therefore, the burden of solving it can't fall on the people who are oppressed by it. It requires white people to do the uncomfortable work of looking inward and outward. Jackson: It’s a heavy conclusion. But it also feels… right. It shifts the burden from the victims to the beneficiaries of the system. Olivia: It does. And she ends not with despair, but with a call to action, quoting the author Terry Pratchett. It’s a line that sums up the entire task ahead. She simply says: "there’s no justice. Just us." Jackson: Wow. "There's no justice. Just us." So it's on all of us, in our own spaces, to do the work. There’s no magical solution coming from on high. It’s just us. Olivia: That's the takeaway. It’s a profound and empowering call for collective responsibility. And it makes you wonder, what's one conversation you've been avoiding, maybe because it feels too uncomfortable, and how could you approach it differently now, with this new framework? We’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Jackson: Absolutely. This book gives you the tools not just to understand the problem, but to start thinking about your own role in the solution. It’s a vital, necessary read. Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.