Just Us

Claudia Rankine breaches the silence, guilt and violence that surround whiteness.

Image from Chapter 12 ‘Violent’ Just Us. Rankine describes a kindergarden incident where the child of her white friend gives Goldilocks brown skin in a colouring exercise, upsetting an Asian classmate.

This feels like a shameful declaration, but give me a book full of white pages and words to read, for pleasure, and I will recoil. My medium of choice for…