“I am trying to understand and own up to my whiteness. To stop wearing blinders. To untie this habitually unseen knot.This task requires attention to the voices of those I, without thinking, considered other. It takes breathing deep into the possibility that reality is other than I have imagined. My life different from the one I thought I was living.” —Marcy Litle, Illusions of Innocence

Illusions of Innocence explores what it means to be a white woman in America today. The spark was lit by Ta-Nehisi Coates, who borrowed James Baldwin’s phrase “those who believe themselves to be white” for Between the World and Me. The book speaks particularly to white people who struggle to understand racism in the United States and who want to explore its history as it relates to their own lives.

“Courageous, inspiring, and deeply honest, Illusions of Innocence explores the roots of racism both in family stories and national myths. Striking the perfect balance between memoir and history, Litle’s book engages with contemporary Black voices and invites white Americans to do the prickly but urgent work of re-examining white innocence.”—Márcia Rego, author of The Dialogic Nation of Cape Verde:Slavery, Language, and Ideology

Purchase the book here:

https://rcwms.org/product/illusions-of-innocence/

Book cover image by MJ Sharp