This book just pissed me off. She makes ridiculous assumptions just to try to prove her thesis. Many of her discussions are honestly interesting and valid (hence the 2 stars), but other points she makes, in particular in the section dealing with Spanish, are just plain wrong. As a native Spanish speaker I can assure you that what she tries to use as proof of racism is ridiculous. I'm very surprised that as an anthropologist she didn't bother to dig a little deeper into the actual social meaning of some stupid grammatical mistake.

Anyone who believes racism is dead because our president is a man of color needs to read this book. The United States has a long, long way to go in ending racism. The first step is honest dialogue with one another without the fear of being though of as "unAmerican".

This brief book (two essays) is something I would recommend to any reader who wishes to understand issues of racism in today's world. One need only look at the badly spelled signs at "Tea Party" rallies and Arizona's SB 1070 to know that racism is, unfortunately, alive and well in the USA even as some pundits argue that President Obama's election proved its demise.Tim Wise examines racism (an institutionalized matter) and bigotry (an individualized matter) not only from historical attitudes but also from the perspective of exceptionalism. He has facts and figures to back up his opinions, and addresses what needs to happen in order for our culture to truly get past the idea that skin color is some kind of valuation.In my opinion, this is a must-read for everyone. I am vehemently anti-racist and still found some matters in this book via which my assumptions were challenged. Not to be missed.