New York Times columnist Charles Blow argues that white supremacy in America will never fully recede, and that it’s time for Black people to do something radical about it. In The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto, he urges a “reverse migration” to the South to consolidate political power and create a region where it’s safe to be Black. (This is an episode of the Freakonomics Radio Book Club.)
So, Charles, you have said that you didn't want to write a, quote, race book.
Yes.
I assume that you would, however, consider this book a race book.
Well, the race books that I knew.
Were of specific genre.
Right?
So there was the race history.
I cannot write a race history book.
I am not a historian.
Even the historical portions of this book, I was pulling my hair out and thinking maybe I was getting something wrong and calling every historian, and I know it, making sure that I wasn't missing something, so I couldn't write that.
And then there were the synthesis of our racism and its deleterious effects books, and I certainly didn't want to write one of those.
And that's primarily where my dislike of the genre comes from, which is that I never really felt that those books were ever written for black people.
They were always explaining something that I already knew to someone else.
I assumed it was all to white people, and I wasn't interested in that.
So who's this book written for?
Black people.
How do you feel about white people reading it?
Oh, I love you.
Read it.
It's wonderful.