This book covers all races and ethnicities, in great detail, although you may not realize that from the title. You can take her explanations to find patterns in place in Europe, South America, or Asia for example, just as much as in a U.S. high school cafeteria.
And, paradoxically, it turns out that everyone of all races are more like each other than not, even specifically about ethnic identity, even when it's different. That's why this book should receive continued and expanded reading. As people may embrace identity politics and their own ethnic identity, they mistakenly think they are being unique, which Tatum explains, they are not. Tatum explains the varied scales of ethnic identity that humans go through in stages by human and social nature.
Tatum shows that in all races, some of us embrace ethnic identity a lot, or more so, while others don't at all, or less so. And the cycles are similar, for all races, around the world, depending on social situations, like depending upon which ethnicity is in a large majority in a given situation. For example, Ms. Tatum, while black herself, identifies blacks who care not at all about embracing a black identity. That is like my family, which was all ethnic German, but didn't care at all about our ethnic identity, like cooking German food, or having clothing from the old country. I still feel that way, while my wife, who is African American, continues to stress her ethnic identity, embracing African history, African-American cooking, and art and items from the old country. We were both born in the U.S., in similar working-class backgrounds.
Ms. Tatum is refreshingly frank, for, example, as she describes herself in her college youth as being so enthusiastically into her own race, that she can't even remember one person's name, outside of her race, from her first four years of college. But she points out, that many others of her own race don't feel that way at all, and don't stress an ethnic identity as being important to them. Some people use ethnic pride for self-confidence, while others do not, or in varying degrees, and it all depends on social situations as well.
This is based on some serious research, not just anecdotes, and it covers every different situation that the multitude of us in all these ethnic backgrounds in the United States are in, as we all have an ethnicity. This book explains results, covering all ethnic groups, all social situations, and the lifetime patterns people take around the world in their identities.
This book helps explain why by human nature how we often think of ourselves, and others, in the ways that we do, as we go through life in various stages. Might I suggest that Ms. Tatum, or others, look further into how or if ethnic identity stages are affected by class status, from the lower working class up to the wealthy. That's a lot of variables, but Ms. Tatum shows that a lot of variables can be indeed be covered.
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race
4.8 | 7,600 ratings
Price: 21.83
Last update: 09-12-2024
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Top reviews from the United States
Troy Deckert
From Asia to the U.S., this covers all races evenly, as to identity.
Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2021J
Outstanding Book So Far
Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2021A.W.
I really appreciated this book.
Reviewed in the United States on September 12, 2020