Surrender White People by D.L. Hughley *** (of 4)

It is interesting that so many books on the market about white supremacy and racism were published long before the murder of George Floyd finally got white people to stop and pay attention. Surrender, White People! was published post-Floyd, but written before, just one more confirmation that a book about the mistreatment of Black Americans by white Americans would continue to be prescient.

Hughley's approach to trying to get white people to understand is to describe life for Blacks as if it were funny. The book is short, but encyclopedic in its coverage, covering topics that everyone should know. Blacks have been denied access to fair housing for generations. Health care and food access for Blacks is of poorer quality than it is for whites. Schools for Black children are more crowded and less well funded. Air pollution and leaded water systems are more prevalent in Black neighborhoods. Jobs, salaries, incarceration rates, arrests and so forth generate worse outcomes for Blacks than whites. Black college athletes generate millions of dollars for big name schools, where black students are severely underrepresented in classrooms. Black athletes, that is, without pay, generate revenue for wealthy institutions. Reminiscent of anything?

To have the travesties of white on black racism laid out so matter-of-factly it is a marvel that so many of us have been so blind for so long to the cumulative impact. Having it presented by an author who is laughing helps. A little.

Most effectively, Hughley lays out the difference between white history, as it is described in schools to children of all colors, and Black history textbooks, if only such things existed. White Americans are not taught about lynchings, Jim Crow, Reconstruction, beatings, disenfranchisement, and widespread anti-Black terrorism. Black children are steeped in it.

Hughley is willing to forgive some of what he considers smaller things. Cultural appropriation, he says, is worth trading on, as in some white people are welcome to try their hand at rap, hip hop, soul food, and basketball. Blacks, after all, eat pizza, and trading cultures is actually one of the things Americans do reasonably well. Whites can keep their black-face party rituals so long as they also wear black face when they apply for loans, on election day, when driving, or whenever the police show up.

Misery and oppression can be funny. Many comedians use it as their stock in trade. Except that it isn't.