White people: This book will change the way you see the world

An unexpected benefit of following and learning from anti-racist thought leaders over the past few years has been the exposure to outstanding writing. For me, the poignant book “Strength of Soul,” by the eloquent Naomi Raquel Enright, is at the top of the list.

This work is the best kind of autobiography. Naomi’s writing is magnificent, and she immerses you in a living, breathing family narrative that spans generations. You have a front row seat to a slice of America to which people like me are willingly oblivious. You benefit from Naomi’s various perspectives as an impressionable young woman, a motivated activist, a teacher, and an equity practitioner.

Naomi grew up bilingual in New York City and identifies as multi-ethnic. Her 23andMe panel is strikingly diversified. Her mixed heritage is a mosaic that spans colors, cultures, and continents: Her Dad was born in America, and his ancestry was Eastern European Jewish; Her Mom was born in Ecuador and is of African, Native American, and Spanish ancestry.

Physical appearance plays a crucial role in the book; Naomi describes herself as brown-skinned with dark hair and eyes, and full lips. Heartbreakingly, she learns from a tender age that the powerful, white-skewed society in America doesn’t take a favorable view of people who look like her. Her home country is boldly racist and overtly and covertly resistant to change. Period.

Naomi’s husband, with his mostly Western European heritage, adds another thread to the book’s intricate ethnic tapestry. These various perspectives enable Naomi to view the world through the parallel lenses of the over privileged and the under privileged: Early on, she sees how people react very differently when she is alongside her light-skinned Dad, as opposed to when she is with her dark-skinned Mom. Later, she describes how people react when she is with her son, who – with his light skin, blond hair, and green eyes – is presumed white.  

All situations lead to cringe-worthy moments. Throughout the book, people make half-witted, awkward, and downright rude assumptions about whether or not she is related to her own family members. As a privileged, white-identifying American, I wondered… Might I have made these same assumptions? Would I have been able to recover gracefully or fallen on my face, as some do in the book? And, most importantly, would I have grown from the experience?

Through the first-person narrative, you feel the impact of relentless emotional pain. Naomi’s epiphanies become our epiphanies. Here are just two moments that hit me:

·     “Because of this country’s fixation on skin color, our relationship as mother and son has been challenged from the moment we brought him home from the hospital.”

·     “I could see the difference in the reactions to my father and me versus to my son and me, and all of a sudden, I could see further.”

The story-telling leads us to ascending levels in Naomi’s awakening. Once she has defined the challenges of racism and ethnicism, they become the catalysts that propel her to become an educator and an expert researcher on the subject. She hones her ability to blend statistics and history to identify the precise rock-sold, scientific facts that are the bedrock of what becomes a life-long crusade for change. She turns the negatives from every anecdote, micro aggression and lesson-learned into a world of positives. It’s inspiring.

The book challenges many of our existing perceptions of society. Here are some key concepts Naomi breaks down in detail, which helps shed new light on some old ways of thinking:

·   The fallacy of racial difference. The book describes how race is a fallacy – there is literally no such concept in science. Race is a social construct by people of European descent to validate a fictitious religious and moral superiority. Naomi writes, “The notion of racial difference is not ‘a fact of life,’ it’s the foundation of racism.”

·   The complexity of identity. Naomi explains that, in America, we tend to perpetuate the “othering” of blackness and brownness, and the “normalizing” of whiteness. There’s the one-drop rule, which has been a key instrument of oppression – and obscures the fact that almost everyone, especially in America, is of mixed heritage. Much of the perception of identity in America still ties directly to colonization and the nonsensical notion of white supremacy.

·   The monolith of systemic racism. Naomi demonstrates that the foundation of systemic racism represents an ideology both of an inherent difference between white people and everyone else (and their lived experiences) as well as of whiteness as shield and protector. She leads us to conclusions that are tough to argue with, e.g. “No real systemic change will occur in our country if we use the tools that built the system to ostensibly try to dismantle it.”

Clearly, we have a lot of work before us. And, toward that end, “Strength of Soul” often made me feel frustrated, sad, angry, and ashamed. But the payoff is huge. Naomi’s life and her work – her life’s thesis – will actually change the way you see the world. To me, this is a critical starting point; the mixed heritage perspective is important for people of every background to understand.

Overall, the book left me marveling at the human spirit, appreciative of the beauty in our cultural differences, and more energized than ever to support folks like Naomi Raquel Enright who are dedicating their lives to break the bonds of systemic racism.