Let's Talk About Race

Let’s Talk About Race
By Julius Lester
Illustrated by Karen Barbour

In our current fraught political and cultural climate, many white teachers want to shy away from talking about race, when it is precisely what we need to talk about. This book, by Julius Lester, an African-American writer and civil rights activist, can facilitate the dialogue. The book is written in the first person, and is a dialogue with the reader with many pages ending with open ended questions. The book is about race but Lester begins with discussion of personal stories and likes and dislikes. Race is presented a little later, initially in an inconsequent way, "Oh. There's something else that is part of my story." Lester is showing the young readers that there are many more important things to see and appreciate about someone, race is just one of them.

The powerful message in this book is ‘race is a story too’; Lester explains how throughout history people have tried to tell the story that “MY RACE IS BETTER THAN YOUR RACE.” But he reminds the readers, some stories are not true, and the people who say that are telling a story that is not true. Lester’s message also asks children to consider how they we are all the same under our skin. A less talented author, or a less thoughtful attempt at this, could have been clumsy, but I believe that the text is an opening point for discussion. Criticisms of this book on Amazon and Goodreads reviews suggested that Lester was promoting a colorblind philosophy. These criticisms would be valid if a teacher read this book once, did not have students engage critically with the text and never returned to the discussion of race. However, if this book is part of a teacher’s wide repertoire of anti-racism texts and whiteness, power and racism are frequently discussed in the classroom, then Lester’s book has a place in the classroom.

The text could be used from about grade 2 upwards. It is philosophical enough to use with middle schoolers and could even be discussed critically by high schoolers.