American Whitelash: A Changing Nation and the Cost of Progress

I had heard of this book from a Make Me Smart podcast episode.

The book is an interesting and slightly depressing look at the racism that clearly still exists in America. The book looks back at various points in history where there were spikes in racial animosity.

There is an obvious futility to the search—there is no satisfying explanation for evil. Yet in moments of chaos and tragedy, human nature demands that we seek answers. For a journalist, the busywork of reporting can be soothing, even if it often feels like we're groping aimlessly in the dark. Understanding the present cannot always be achieved by examining what lays in front of us. Often the answers lie as much in our past as they do in our present, requiring us to turn around and look back.

I’m not so naive to think that racism is dead, but I guess until 2016, I thought we were starting to get better. This book only shows that we still have a long way to go.

One example mentions is that the election of Barack Obama as president caused a backlash from white supremacists and the far-right. To make me even more angry about things, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) saw the rise of the far-right terrorism and reported it only to have the Republican Party push to have the DHS retract the report. Instead of tackling the problem, the GOP allowed for terrorists to simmer.

This book is informative, but it disappoints me seeing how little we have changed as a country.