As a non-Black woman of color, I have mixed feelings about this anthology. It’s not lost on me that their expressions of vulnerability are influenced by their specific familial and cultural backgrounds. Some essays explicitly weave family history with that of the larger society; Una O’Connell’s examination of Switzerland’s famed neutrality is an especially fine example. I acknowledge that the authors are at different stages of recognizing and articulating their relationship to whiteness, both as it has played out in their personal lives as well as in larger society. There nevertheless remains a self-congratulatory tone uniting these 12 essays. I was hoping for something more advanced than naming which, while undoubtedly important, is merely the first step. Perhaps this is the goal of the book. If so, I’d recommend it for white-identifying (and even white-adjacent) women, especially those who deem themselves liberal/progressive, and who are just beginning to discover this crucial aspect of their identity.

I really enjoyed this collection. I liked all the the essays took a different approach on the topic of whiteness and ancestry. All these authors provided different outlooks and came from different backgrounds. Some were from the US, Canada, Switzerland, even Russia. They all had different religious backgrounds. There were a few essays that I felt invalidated people of different backgrounds from the author. I hope I just read too deep into those parts, but I came out of reading those essays with an icky feeling.