65 pages • 2 hours read
Winona Guo, Priya VulchiTell Me Who You Are: Sharing Our Stories of Race, Culture, & Identity
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Acknowledging Systemic Inequities and Privilege
Content Warning: This section references the use of “the n-word” and other racial slurs, as well as racism broadly.
The book demonstrates the systemic inequities and privilege linked to race in various contexts: education, criminal justice, politics, family, religion, and the economy. The interviewees also discuss various types of privilege, such as white privilege, light-skinned privilege, class privilege, and gender privilege. Inequities and privilege coexist in a society that supports some groups over others, making the recognition of both central to the book’s project.
For example, many interviewees discuss the racism in the educational system, including the continuing issue of school segregation, which contributes to educational inequities. In fact, the authors wrote the book because of their lack of education about race in school. In other words, racism in schools is not merely a question of overt prejudice but also of omission—i.e., the absence of discussion about racism’s reality. Family can be a forum for discussing such issues, but it can also reinforce societal ideas about race or identity, either explicitly or by ignoring them. For instance, Jennifer L.’s Asian American family was racist toward Black people, and some interviewees faced rejection from their families for being too light-skinned. The latter in particular reveals the complexity of racial oppression, as what might be a privilege in society at large can become a marker for discrimination among family. Several interviewees faced similar attitudes from their fellow students, illustrating how the family and educational system can overlap to reinforce equities and discrimination.
Racism within the criminal justice system, particularly among police, is another form of systemic oppression the book considers at length. Tracye experienced racism with Black police officers at a rally, and Mareo experienced racism and violence from police officers. As a societal institution holding the power to incarcerate, the criminal justice system impacts people’s lives for the long term and compounds other institutional inequities, such as in education and wealth; incarceration limits a person’s educational and work opportunities and may impact their finances.
Tell Me Who You Are demonstrates that poverty is itself a major driver of inequality. Nick explains how several of the poorest places in the US are reservations in South Dakota. Vaughn traces poverty culture’s roots to governmental institutions but reveals how it bleeds into people’s attitudes about themselves: “A lot of people are really lost. They begin to adopt poverty culture into Lakota culture, and they think being impoverished is just who we are. It never was—that was from colonization” (117). These inequities are historically based, yet people view them as part of a fixed group identity rather than based on generations of inequities rooted in colonialism.
Just like inequities, privilege is historically based. The conceptualization of whiteness as the norm is the form of privilege most at issue in the book, informing nearly every interview in one way or another, but as part of its intersectional project, the work also considers things like class privilege and gender privilege. Just as it is important to speak out about inequality, the book suggests, it is also important to speak out about privilege—e.g., as Melina does when she acknowledges how her whiteness enables her to reach other white people in a way people of color might not be able to. Ultimately, acknowledging systemic oppression and privilege leads to better awareness and moves society toward change.
Identity Is Intersectional
The intersectionality of identity is a theme implicitly stressed throughout the interviews and explicitly discussed in Chapter 3. The authors emphasize how identity and experience involve not only race but also sex, class, ability, orientation, religion, immigrant status, gender identity, ethnicity, age, etc. In compiling the book, they asked interviewees to describe how these markers impact their lives in conjunction with race. This is the premise of intersectionality: that a given identity marker is not discrete but rather interacts with others to create complex lives and different experiences of discrimination and inequities. What’s more, individuals’ unique experiences can also help them connect with and educate others.
Several interviewees illustrate the complexity of intersectional identities. Keah expresses how her Blackness, gender, and disability intersect: “I am also a Black woman with a disability. Much of the way I navigate the world is indistinguishable from my Blackness and my womanhood and my disability” (111). She emphasizes how these categories impact her experiences, particularly as markers visible to the outside world. Tracye also addresses his complex intersectional identities in his discussion of how his race impacts his experience of his orientation: “I couldn’t truly be gay when marriage equality happened because I still had to fight just to live as a Black man. So I’m always reminded of the intersection that I exist in” (115). Similarly, Rosa describes her experience of being queer and undocumented as “two closets to come out of. I wasn’t as hesitant to come out about being pansexual queer; I was actually more hesitant to come out as being undocumented” (128). These complex identities impact the inequities people face as they navigate the world experiencing not just one form of oppression but multiple intersecting ones.
Tell Me Who You Are also uses intersectionality to consider how inequity works on a macro level. For example, Patience K. discusses how class and race intersect to create poverty through “low wages. Economic injustice. Structural racism. When you look at the history of our country, you see that wealth didn’t just happen. It was produced generationally. The same thing happens with poverty” (273). She emphasizes how poverty and racism, including generational discrimination, combine to create ongoing inequity. Likewise, Melina argues that patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy are inherently intertwined:
I call this the Big Three: patriarchy, capitalism, and White supremacy. They’re all connected, and together, they create a system of power that’s been built up over generations. Capitalism quantifies the value of people. Patriarchy differentiates the value of people based on gender. White supremacy differentiates value of people based on race. All three quantify people as being worth more or less. They feed each other. I question whether you can dismantle one without dismantling the others (36).
This implies that addressing racism necessarily involves addressing sexism and capitalism as well.
While it can create complex inequities, intersectionality can also facilitate unique voices that can educate others about racial and intersectional literacy. Hermon notes how strangers’ confusion about his race allows him to “talk about the issues being intersectional on economic, racial, criminal justice, environmental lines” (316). This places him in a unique position that ultimately allows him to underscore the connected nature of contemporary societal problems. Angela uses her own intersecting identity to uplift other women of color: “I’m always advocating for the voices that aren’t there. I do my best to make sure I open those doors for other women and other women of color” (266).
Tell Me Who You Are suggests that intersectionality can reveal the hidden life experiences, discrimination, and inequities in peoples’ lives while also shedding light on the workings of society as a whole. Understanding intersectionality thus helps people not only to educate others but also to understand themselves.
Combating Racism and Discrimination as Revolution
By sharing the interviewees’ stories, the book strives to promote racial literacy and spur change. However, that change involves much more than merely changing individual opinions. Because racism is so entrenched throughout societal institutions, the book implies, combating racism means rethinking and potentially overhauling many aspects of modern life.
One of the most fundamental changes the book advocates for involves language—specifically, understanding that words matter, as emphasized in Chapter 5. This not only means avoiding but also understanding racist language. Many interviewees discuss the use of derogatory terms like “the n-word”; Lita, for example, explains that her white friends decided that they could use the term “because they’ve said it around their Black friends and their Black friends haven’t been mad” (169). This attitude reveals their ignorance about the term and its history, including the ways in which their use of it might have made their Black friends feel like they couldn’t safely object. It therefore speaks not only to the importance of language but to the importance of conversations about language. More broadly, the book also suggests that the vocabulary people use influences the way they think about things. This has implications for addressing inequality, as those who lack the terms needed to conceptualize certain problems may struggle even to recognize them. The distinction between “nonracist” versus “antiracist” and the story of the Detroit tour guide who described herself as “color-blind” to avoid discussing race are good examples; if someone cannot see how their actions enable racism or views themselves merely as a passive (if well-intentioned) bystander to the problem, they cannot meaningfully address inequity.
The relationship between language and thought lays the groundwork for Chapter 7’s discussion of the need for a societal shift in ideas about what is normal. The authors try to imagine a society where it would be normal for people of color to feel belonging and “be welcomed as Americans just as important and deserving to be here as any other” (212). Such a society, they conclude, would need to consider “diversity” rather than “whiteness” the norm. The book works to kickstart this shift by providing stories of interviewees who have found confidence in their difference; Eryn and Safia, for example, express satisfaction with their “different” appearance as a Black Muslim woman and Black woman, respectively. They changed their ideas, viewing their “difference” as normal.
Change must also involve the way in which people relate to one another—e.g., by moving away from thinking in terms of division, including those within and between racial groups. The authors argue that division is itself a product of white supremacy, which carves out whiteness as the norm and ranks others based on their perceived closeness to it: “We’re all fighting the same fight: to dismantle White supremacy [...] Let’s not fall into the trap Whiteness has created: a divided humanity” (177). Howard and Delores offer the example of whiteness dividing Black and Indigenous American people, who see each other from the white perspective.
These changes in speech and thought lay the groundwork for the material and societal changes the book ultimately advocates for. The authors view learning about race as the first step and describe their own path toward racial literacy in the Introduction, but they also emphasize action, equity, and healing: “All of us are affected by the toxicity of racism, and we all have a duty to do something about it” (285-86). Action could mean activism (as for Tiara), nonprofit work (as for Protim and Steph), or representation (as for Monique and Kao Kalia). It can also mean having conversations about race, addressed through the Epilogue’s conversational norms. Since fighting discrimination requires change in many areas of society, the work needed to combat racism is as complex and varied as the experience of oppression itself.
Stories, Language, and Conversations About Race and Identity
Tell Me Who You Are advocates sharing stories about identity, having conversations about race, speaking up, and understanding that the language one uses matters. This theme permeates the entire book and informs its very structure; the work is a collection of stories about race, racism, and other identity markers. The authors emphasize that discussions about race and identity require depth: deep conversations, deep understanding of language, and deep sharing to create meaningful understanding.
The book’s emphasis on sharing stories reflects the broader importance of being open about race and listening to others. Statistics are not enough, as the authors explain in their TED Talk, because personal narratives spotlight the human side and aid in better understanding:
Throwing out just the statistics, just the facts alone, disconnected from real humans, can lead to a dangerously incomplete understanding of those facts. It fails to recognize that for many people who don’t understand racism, the problem is not a lack of knowledge to talk about the pain of white supremacy and oppression, it’s that they don’t recognize that that pain exists at all. They don’t recognize the human beings that are being affected, and they don’t feel enough to care (Guo, Winona. “What It Takes to Be Racially Literate.” TED, 2018).
Because race is so personal, the authors differentiate between the types of stories in the book, “soul stories,” and more superficial “ego stories.” Winona Guo and Priya Vulchi imply that society encourages peoples to avoid the former and explain their different approach: “[W]e realized that our norm is to share only ego stories: stories that orbit around the superficial, and skim past any deeper understanding of who we are [...] we asked for [interviewees’] soul stories, intimate stories about their identities” (122). Surface stories hinder true understanding between people, a topic addressed in Chapter 4, while ego stories facilitate it.
Sharing stories also means speaking up about one’s own culture. However, doing so can create emotional fatigue for people of color, who “experience racism and then have to relive it in conversation, or defend themselves when others don’t believe them, or be called on to speak on behalf of their whole race” (295). Therefore, the book argues, white people should discuss race with other white people. Justin explains, “White students need to know about the experiences of students of color [...] The oppressed shouldn’t have to do it all. The oppressor needs to help out. White people need to talk to other White people” (26). Speaking up allows conversations to occur and therefore deepens understanding.
The Epilogue’s focus on conversational norms brings this theme together via a road map for difficult conversations about race, promoting racial literacy—the overall goal of the book. Because race matters, discussing it matters, enabling better understanding of identity within oneself, across relationships, and in society.
