I hated this book. There I've said it. Part of me wanted to give it one star and move along quickly, but I didn't because the author makes some very good points. Maybe I'm just a white person justifying my own discomfort, maybe not.
She is quite right: society is structurally racist; most white people benefit from white privilege without recognising or acknowledging it; feminism and other movements for change should be fully intersectional and realise that all movements for justice must intertwine with anti-racism; social injustice disproportionately affects people of colour. All good and true points.
BUT she makes her points backed up by anecdotes, stories of bad things happening to black people, and statistics, few of which have any analysis beyond, "This is bad! It happened to black people so it's racist!" The verbatim report of her interview with Nick Griffin (whose views are undeniably horrendous) struck me as lazy journalism.
More than this, her hostility to well-meaning white people was unrelenting and exhausting. (And yes, I know, that's nothing compared to the exhaustion felt by people of colour faced with racism and incomprehension of racism.) I was left with the impression that even wanting to learn to do better, I had no hope of ever being good enough. Faced with her contradicting assertions that it's not up to black people to educate white people about racism (fair enough) and that white people will/can never understand racism, I was left wondering what I WAS supposed to do about it. Ultimately I got the impression that any disagreement with her would be seen as racist at worst or white privilege/fragility at best. I genuinely don't understand how that attitude can make things better for anyone.
But maybe that's because I'm white and defensive. I honestly don't know.