Reni Eddo-Lodge

Reni Eddo-Lodge

Festival of Ideas May 2017

Talk

Please note: This event took place in May 2017

Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race

In February 2014 Reni Eddo-Lodge posted an impassioned argument on her blog about her deep-seated frustration with the way discussions of race and racism in Britain were constantly being shut down by those who weren’t affected by it. She gave the post the title: ‘Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race’.

The post went viral, spawning a huge number of comments from people desperate to speak up about their own, similar experiences. Galvanised by this response, she decided to dive into the source of these feelings; this clear hunger for an open discussion. She explores what it is to be a person of colour in Britain today, covering issues from eradicated black history to white privilege, the fallacy of ‘meritocracy’ to white-washing feminism and the inextricable link between class and race.

She offers a wake-up call to a nation in denial about the structural and institutional racism occurring in our homes, offices and communities.

Speaker biography:

Reni Eddo-Lodge is an award-winning journalist. Her work can be found at the New York Times, Voice, Telegraph, Guardian, Independent, Stylist, Inside Housing, Pool, Dazed and Confused and the New Humanist. She is the winner of an MHP 30 to Watch Award and was chosen as one of the 30 Most Exciting People Under 30 in Digital Media by the Guardian in 2014. She has been listed in Elle’s 100 Inspirational Women list and The Roof’s 30 Black Viral Voices Under 30. She has appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and was a panellist for Woman’s Hour’s 2014 Power List. Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race is her first book. Follow her on Twitter

Followed by a book signing.


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