A space to discuss Carol Anderson's White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of our Racial Divide, in advance of her talk on the Carlson Family Stage later in the evening.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
- Is White Rage a useful category of analysis? What does it reveal, provoke, or silence? (pages 3-4)
- Anderson explains that the “promise embedded in the Civil Rights Act 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965” was destroyed, in part, by white authority’s redefining of racism. (page 100) How have definitions and understandings of racism evolved? What does white rage look like (sound like) in Minnesota? At the University of Minnesota
- The book makes a case that white rage is pervasive, consistent, and powerful across time throughout the United States. The systems and laws intended to protect people repeatedly fail. If this is true, how do we “defuse the power of white rage”? (pages 175-176)
SUGGESTED READING: "Ferguson isn’t about black rage against cops. It’s white rage against progress." Carol Anderson, Washington Post, August 29, 2014 (behind paywall)
Discussion moderated by Malinda Lindquist, current IAS Residential Faculty Fellow and faculty member in the departments of History and African-American & African Studies, and Greg Donofrio, Associate Professor & Director of Heritage Conservation and Preservation at the College of Design. Please bring your own copy of the book if possible; the University Libraries have recently acquired additional copies, as has the University Bookstore. If you're unable to secure your own copy, please email us.