Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: New Books in African American Studies
Episode: Jennifer Chudy, "Some White Folks: The Interracial Politics of Sympathy, Suffering, and Solidarity" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
Description: There is racial inequality in America, and some people are distressed over it while others are not. Some White Folks: The Interracial Politics of Sympathy, Suffering, and Solidarity (University of Chicago Press, 2024) by Dr. Jennifer Chudy is a book about white people who feel that distress. For decades, political scientists have studied the effects of white racial prejudice, but Dr. Chudy shows that white racial sympathy for Black Americans’ suffering is also a potent force in modern American politics. Grounded in the history of Black-white relations in America, racial sympathy is unique. It is not equivalent to a low leve...