WILLIAM MORROW/HarperCollins
[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]
AUTHORS: D.L. Hughley and Doug Moe
ISBN: 978-0-06-295370-4; hardback; 5.5 x 7.25 (June 30, 2020)
256pp, B&W, $27.99 U.S., $34.99 CAN
Surrender, White People!: Our Unconditional Terms for Peace is a 2020 non-fiction, humor, and social commentary book written by D.L Hughley and Doug Moe. Hughley is an actor, comedian, and longtime social activist, and Moe is a writer and an actor and performer associated with the “Upright Citizens Brigade.”
Surrender, White People!: Our Unconditional Terms for Peace works under the premise that America is about to become a majority-minority nation, and Hughley has a warning for White people. White people are not only going to be a minority themselves, but they are also going to face a reckoning. It is time for White people to sue for peace, and have some fun while D.L. holds them for accountable and lays out the details. Have a laugh and Surrender, White People!
Hughley says that in a browner America black and brown people are not going to take a backseat anymore. Thus, it is time for White people to surrender their unjust privileges; face their history, put aside all their visions of superiority, and open up their institutions so they benefit everyone in this nation.
Luckily for America... and for White people, D.L. has a plan. If White people go along with it, the might actually get Black people (finally!) to stop talking about oppression, discrimination, and their place in America
THE LOWDOWN: I have never read any of D.L. Hughley's books, including How Not to Get Shot, but after reading Surrender, White People!, I feel that I need to do so. I am a longtime fan of Hughley's stand-up comedy and especially of his political and social commentary. He is one of the sharpest and most honest commentators on race relations, race awareness. He is especially good speaking and writing on the inequalities in the United States and of the historic and systemic oppression of African slaves and their descendants at the hands of White people in America.
The premise of Surrender, White People! is that we need a peace treaty between Black folks and White people. However, D.L. says there can only be peace and reconciliation if White people give up their “White privileges” and renounce “White supremacy.”
D.L.'s treaty is a kind of new constitution that has a preamble and six articles. Hughley and Moe fill the articles with facts, history, and examples of why each article is necessary. There is triple truth, Ruth, and genuine, even uproarious humor. Laughs aside, the first two articles, “White People Shall Consider Reparations” and “History Books Shall Be Aligned,” unleash a savage broadside on White privilege and on the history of the United States of America... which is essentially a White (washed) story.
It would be too easy to say that Surrender, White People! is the perfect book for our troubled times. The truth is that the time is always right for what D.L. Hughley has to say about racism in America. Surrender, White People! is an opportunity to laugh, to learn, and to move us a little closer to real, substantial change.
But considering what has happened in the year 2020, we will need more books from D.L. Hughley and Doug Moe... and probably some amendments to this peace treaty.
I READS YOU RECOMMENDS: Fans of D.L. Hughley cannot and must not miss Surrender, White People!: Our Unconditional Terms for Peace.
10 out of 10
Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"
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