Thank you to NetGalley and 4th Estate Books for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is such an incredibly poignant essay that talks about racism in 2020 following the death of George Floyd and the protests and mass outrage that followed. This essay delves a little deeper into white allyship and whether white people are actively being allies or just saying that black lives matter in private. As said in this essay, would you brush off a racist comment from your boss over the fear of losing your job? If you would, are you really an ally? Otegha Uwagba says that for white people to be real allies then they must be willing to lose the rights that their whiteness grants them, and I couldn't agree more. Progression isn't just white people reading a few books and sending a few tweets. It's action.

'Whites', Otegha Uwagba's essay about racism in 2020, will prove interesting to readers this year, but more importantly will serve in the future as an excellent record of this incredibly fraught chapter in our history. Uwagba is a brilliant writer, who blends memoir and politics effortlessly, and captures exactly why George Floyd's murder proved a catalyst for mass protest and debate, and the different ways people, white people in particular, publicly acted afterwards.

Uwagba describes the spectacle of Floyd's murder and how the video was everywhere she turned. Ordinarily, there would be distraction from this story, but with so many people the world over either working from home or having lost their jobs, there was a constant, captive audience who were isolated and anxious and angry. The issue of police brutality and white supremacy being so rife in the United States, and that racism being mirrored the world over, and people of colour being disproportionately affected by COVID 19, was like a match just waiting to be lit by this horrible act of violence.

I found her point that society paints the work of black artists as being something that responds to the "obstacles presented by the white world" really hit the nail on the head on how art by black people is valued by white people as something useful to them and their "education" about racism only, and not because that art is valuable in its own right. Similarly, white people sharing anti racism reading lists while people protested and put their lives at risk was, while perhaps well intentioned, to Uwagba a way of becoming theoretically aware without changing anything. At the very least, she quips, it will train them to be less overtly racist, which was both scary and funny to read. After all, as she concludes, until white people are ready to actually give up their privilege, they aren't real allies.

There is a huge appetite at the moment for new voices, new stories and books that help us make sense of the world. I hope that the books that are published to meet this need are not, as Uwagba fears, only to assuage white guilt but will make way for fresh and exciting work, that is brilliant in its own right, as well as inspiring change. I'm certainly excited to read more of Uwagba and am looking forward to her forthcoming book on money.