White Fear

Overview: White fear has shaped our democracy and society from the beginning—and today, it’s more intense and visible than ever. To neutralize it, we must first understand it. For two centuries, the deep-seated fear that many White people feel—of losing power, of losing economic standing, of losing a particular “way of life”—has been the driving force behind American politics and culture. Nationally renowned journalist and award-winning author Roland Martin has been sounding this alarm for more than a decade. In White Fear, he provides a primer on how white fear has shaped, and continues to shape, our democracy and our culture. He connects the separate puzzle pieces, from the Tea Party Movement and QAnon to the decline of White American optimism to the diminishing blue-collar workforce, to highlight the larger problems, and offers a better way forward. If we want to create the kind of country that we’re all welcome in and proud to live in, we can no longer ignore white fear. He offers ways to neutralize it—in our country and, for White listeners, ourselves—we must first understand it. Only then can we recognize and dismantle it.

And as the last few years have shown, we have no time to waste.