All of the above: this was the climate that the book entered the world into. My thinking on race had remained consistent for half a decade, and was considered wildly radical back in 2012. But by 2017, the politics of the western world had changed drastically. People were looking for answers – a balm to soothe, or an antidote to fight back.
My initial aim with this book was simple. I wanted to change the national conversation about race. By the time the book was published, the stars had aligned in such a way that people were ready for it. At the turn of 2017, I was full of apprehension about how it would be received. I had decided, with encouragement from my editor, to stick to the same title as the original blog post. It was important to me to be totally honest with readers about that initial flash point of frustration and despair. I knew things were about to get real when I saw the draft book cover. Greg Heinemann, Bloomsbury’s design wizard, had, on reading the blog post, translated the words into an image that couldn’t be more suited. When I posted the cover to social media, roughly a year before publication, the shares were out of control, and the anticipation was palpable. Much of this response was thanks to that cardinal sin – judging a book by its cover. At the very least it says ‘this has not been written by a white person’. At the very most, it says to white audiences ‘this is not for you’. And, like a red rag to a bull, the attention came in droves. It enthralled some, and sent others into a rage. In amongst the praise were early signs of ire from white people; some lectured me about segregation, or told me that Martin Luther King Junior would never approve of my work. Others admonished me for my prejudice.
Passionate responses to the way this book looks have never really slowed down. I’ve heard stories from booksellers who have had the book on display in their window, and stories from readers who have read my book on their daily commute. In every instance, a white person tried to start an argument with them about what they were reading or selling. This was the scenario an east London bookseller relayed to me after I visited her shop to sign some books. An elderly white man had entered the shop, saw the book in the window, and, shaking with rage, proceeded to make a scene at the counter, angry because ‘it wouldn't be allowed the other way round’. ‘He was so angry, I couldn’t speak to him’, she told me. Then there was the young black man who, on reading the book in public, had to endure the displeasure of a white woman approaching him to let him know that the book he was reading ‘really didn’t help the conversation’. White middle class people can be particularly calculated with their discomfort. I have had a lot of people working on the periphery of the book – booksellers, photographers, producers – earnestly tell me that my work is provocative. ‘It’s very controversial, isn’t it?’ they’ll ask, over and over again, in the space of a thirty minute conversation. ‘Is it?’ I’ll respond. ‘Have you read it?’ ‘No’, they will inevitably say.
Beyond the public’s gut reaction to the cover, I was keen to see if the content of the book would have an impact on Britain’s discussion on race. It’s never not scary to present your ideas to the public, ready to be picked apart. But the initial reactions were positive. A day before the book published, a four-thousand-word extract was printed in the Guardian. My inbox filled with reader reactions, from heartfelt and reflective to the utterly confusing. One person recommended that I take up yogic flying, assuring me that once I learnt how to levitate, racism might not bother me anymore. But beyond the absurd was a trend. I watched white people reflect on the dynamics of their own lives, and start to consider how race had shaped it. I watched as the book dislodged a pressure valve for readers of colour, who told me that it had given them the confidence to give up on a belligerent friend, or have a difficult conversation with a boss.
The first event for the book took place at London’s Southbank centre, three months before publication – a conversation between myself and journalist Hannah Pool. My throat constricted in anxiety as I watched the queue to enter the venue snake down the stairs half an hour before it was due to begin. My friends in the audience told me afterwards that the atmosphere was ‘electric’. After forty-five minutes of me discussing my frustrations with white people centring their feelings, we opened up to questions. A white woman raised her hand, began to talk, and promptly burst into tears. I had seen it coming, had heard her voice begin to wobble. She felt terrible about all of this, she said. She had considered self-harm. She didn’t know what to do. Gritting my teeth, I cut her off mid-monologue and confidently asserted that wallowing in despair would not get us anywhere. As I felt the pressure mount on me to steer the atmosphere of the room, I realised I was about to become responsible for a lot of people’s feelings.
So much of touring this book has involved the regulating of other people’s feelings. At book events there have been happy tears, guilty tears, laughter and rage. There has been a tendency for audience frustration to be aimed at whatever heritage venue has been hosting me – legitimate anger at the fact that this is one of the few times these institutions have properly engaged with the topic. There have been inspiring children and teenagers in the audience, genuinely giving me hope for the future. There has been in-real-life trolling in the form of a man who turned up to an event alone, ignored everything I said, and proceeded to follow me around after the book signing was finished, not allowing me to sit quietly or eat in peace, hurling question after question until my publicist told him to go away.