Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man by Emmanuel Acho

Genre: Nonfiction
Length: 288 pages
Audiobook Length: 8 hours and 36 minutes
First Published: 2020

Rachael’s Review

Emmanuel Acho, former NFL player turned sports analyst, takes on the hard questions that many white Americans are afraid to ask but need to know to be more informed. Based on his hit YouTube series, Acho presents each topic as a way to help people increase their understanding and change their behaviors to help end racism in America.

Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man is an excellent beginning primer on race and racism in America. Acho patiently discusses both basic topics and deeper concerns such as white privilege, and reverse racism. An approachable reading, Acho’s book is a good starting place, full of recommendations on how to deepen your understanding.

Publisher’s Description

“You cannot fix a problem you do not know you have.” So begins Emmanuel Acho in his essential guide to the truths Americans need to know to address the systemic racism that has recently electrified protests in all fifty states. “There is a fix,” Acho says. “But in order to access it, we’re going to have to have some uncomfortable conversations.”

In Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man, Acho takes on all the questions, large and small, insensitive and taboo, many white Americans are afraid to ask―yet which all Americans need the answers to, now more than ever. With the same open-hearted generosity that has made his video series a phenomenon, Acho explains the vital core of such fraught concepts as white privilege, cultural appropriation, and “reverse racism.” In his own words, he provides a space of compassion and understanding in a discussion that can lack both. He asks only for the reader’s curiosity―but along the way, he will galvanize all of us to join the antiracist fight.