BLACK HISTORY MONTH: Kehinde Andrews 'The Psychosis of Whiteness'

The Psychosis of Whiteness

Take a step through the looking-glass to a strange land, one where Piers Morgan is a voice worth listening to about race, where white people buy self-help books to help them cope with their whiteness, where Boris Johnson and Donald Trump are seen by the majority of the population as 'the right (white) man for the job'. Perhaps you know it. All the inhabitants seem to be afflicted by serious delusions, for example that racism doesn't exist and if it does it can be cured with a one-hour inclusion seminar, and bizarre collective hallucinations, like the widely held idea that Britain's only role in slavery was to abolish it.
But there is a serious side too. Society cannot face up to the racism at its heart and in its history, so the delusions, irrationalities and hallucinations it conjures up to avoid doing so can only best be described as a psychosis, with the costs being borne by the sons and daughters of that racist history. Living in a racist world is like living in a world that bears no resemblance to reality. Black and brown people suffer from a greater number of mental health difficulties too, caused in no small part by trying to survive a racist society.
Kehinde Andrews is your piercing, wry and not a little funny guide back to sanity, unpicking the absurd and outrageous lies society tells to keep up the status quo. The Psychosis of Whiteness is your lifeboat out of this topsy-turvy world.

Kehinde Andrews

Andrews is a Professor of Black Studies in the School of Social Sciences at Birmingham City University. He is the director of the Centre for Critical Social Research, founder of the Harambee Organisation of Black Unity, and co-chair of the UK Black studies association.

Andrews is the first Black Studies professor in the UK and led the establishment of the first Black Studies programme in Europe at Birmingham City University.

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