Praise for Are White Men Smarter Than Everybody Else?
Steve Phillips situates our present crisis exactly where it belongswithin the long, unfinished struggle to make real the promise that all are created equal. By tracing a line from the Gettysburg Address to the nationwide, and global, racial reckoning sparked by the murder of George Floyd, he reminds us that backlash is not new, but neither is resistance.Anna Malaika Tubbs, New York Times bestselling author of Erased and The Three Mothers
Steve Phillips says the quiet part out loud. He names, with precision and urgency, the uncomfortable truth many of us, especially those of us who are white, have been taught to skirt around: racial inequality in America is the result of sustained conditioning that leads so many of us to believe that straight white men are far more competent than the rest of us. This book exposes who holds powerand why. This book doesnt allow white readers to remain spectators. It calls us in and calls us out.Erin Heaney, executive director of Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ)
For more than a decade Steve Phillips has been an indispensable analyst of Americas political failuresand political possibilities. Now, with this provocative and powerful book, he offers the modest suggestion that white men may not be smarter and more talented than the other 71 percent of the populationand that the way to find out is to end straight white American male preferenceor, as he puts it so eloquently, the SWAMPand create a truly multiracial democracy.Jon Wiener, historian, journalist, contributing editor of The Nation and host of The Nations weekly podcast, Start Making Sense