White Thinking

It has taken me far longer than usual to review White Thinking because this book is so profound, so eye-opening, so thought-provoking. Lilian Thuram looks back several centuries into the past to uncover the original development of White Thinking and then demonstrates in brilliantly well-researched detail how this state of mind has driven human activity across the globe, leading us to the vast inequalities we experience today. Thuram is wonderfully erudite, unpacking complex concepts so that I never felt left behind. White Thinking is essentially an intellectual survey of biased sociological and political processes, but it is also a very readable book and one which I hope will fire up other readers as much as it did me.

Thuram tackles a wide range of subjects from colonialist genocides and their lasting impact to locker room talk. His book manages to link the personal to the global and I particularly appreciated its European focus. Thuram compares the White subjugation of Black people to male subjugation of female people, illustrating how similar methods of flat out denial, misrepresentation and distraction are used (although this example did rankle slightly with me as, having read White Tears, Brown Scars by Ruby Hamad, I am only too aware that feminism has historically not been inclusive to women of colour and there is still a lot of work to do here).

Essentially, we have bought into the concept that a rich, white, male perspective is the only true 'normal' and anyone who is not of that group deserves to be lower down the pecking order. In tandem with this, those 'lower' groups are taught to fear each other, externally blaming and attacking each other in order to scrabble for a slight individual social rise. Fuelled by capitalist theory and the myth of meritocracy, it will not be until many of us step back and see the system for what it is that there will be any chance for true change. Thuram's ideas and conclusions reminded me strongly of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell and, in common with that situation, a lack of unity only benefits those at the very top.

I am sure that White Thinking's mere existence as a book will anger a lot of people, a point Thuram himself raises as people are generally more likely to attack the messenger telling them they have been fooled. It seems we would generally prefer to cling to the little privilege we are allowed, than to risk losing our individual status in the attempt to raise everyone. It's a very human response, however I hope White Thinking is widely read and discussed because, once brave people such as Lilian Thuram have drawn back the curtain, it is very difficult to continue being blind to the truth.