Overcoming Our Racism: The Journey to Liberation by Derald Wing Sue, Derald Wing Sue

Product Details

Synopsis

This extraordinary book by Derald Wing Sue, a highly-regarded academic and author, helps readers understand and combat racism in themselves. It defines racism not only as extreme acts of hatred, but as "any attitude, action or institutional structure or social policy that subordinates a person or group because of their color." This landmark work offers an antidote to this pervasive social problem.

Shows how each of us has a role in the oppression of others, and what we can do about it
Offers a way to overcome racism on a very intimate level
Outlines specific guidelines and suggested activities

Publishers Weekly

This uncompromising anti-racist manifesto written for a white audience is concerned less with Klansmen and skinheads than with the white woman clutching her purse when minority teenagers draw near; the white man flinching at getting in an elevator full of black men; even the well-meaning but patronizing liberal teacher in a ghetto school.] Sue, a Chinese-American psychologist, argues that the countless daily slights inflicted by such "unconscious and unintentional racists," do more harm to minorities than the occasional hate-crime. He reveals the subtle but pervasive bias against minorities in the economy, the media, school system, even the subconscious mind (whites have involuntary negative reactions when flashed subliminal images of black faces), and shows how the "invisible whiteness of being" allows whites to remain oblivious to the privileges they enjoy. The book demands that whites "accept responsibility for [their] whiteness," and includes suggested readings, videotapes, and exercises to help whites unearth and deal with their biases and learn to mingle with minorities. It includes a seven-phase program for reconstructing a non-racist white identity, culminating in a conversion experience, complete with emotional catharsis and adoption of a "second family" of minorities and other "liberated whites." Whites may bridle at Sue's accusatory tone and find the recovery-movement tone of his remedy off-putting. But many will feel a painful shock of recognition at his subtle but unsparing analysis of everyday racism, and find this provocative book a compelling challenge to their complacency. (July) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Biography

Derald Wing Sue is professor of psychology and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. He was president of the Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues, the cofounder and first president of the Asian American Psychological Association, and currently president of the Society of Counseling Psychology. He is the author of the best-selling book Counseling the Culturally Diverse, fourth edition 2002 from Wiley.