As I read Cross’s book, “All White People live in Racism.” This seemed uncomfortable to me as a white person, but I grew up in the UK where the perception is that the Brits are liberal. However, the country has emerged from a colonial past but racism is evident there.
In Johnson’s book, he attended a Catholic school initially and history was taught from a revisionist perspective, and Johnson even took part in pageantry glorifying the heroes of the revolution who often were slave owners. As Cross points out, race is an evolving social idea crated to legitimize racial inequality and protect white advantage.
I emigrated to the US in 1971 as a 25 year old and 14 years before Johnson was born, my knowledge of US history was minimal. I was “bathed” in the students of the University of California’s anti war and the peace movement and began my career in science in (partial} understanding of the colorism of US history.
Johnson, years later as he changed to a Black school, undergoes the transformation from this whitewashing to an honest reckoning of his Black History.
The Eurocentric view of white privilege is all pervasive, whether you are white, Black or Brown.
