As I was finishing this book it made me wonder how many white people who, in 2020, made the motions to pick up Black literature and anti-racist texts have actually read any of them. I’m sure some have. But I bet we can guess what the majority’s answer would be.

All that to not quite pat myself on the back but just to say how continually reading these words by non-white people rewires the brain to consider these things. That is the goal right? So it’s in that vein that reading this book felt both enlightening and, similarly to reading James Baldwin or W.E.B. Du Bois, in seeing just how the lessons haven’t been learned; depressing. At least, unlike (but not wrongly) so many other books, Whistling Vivaldi looks to give evidence and signposts (not solutions!) that can be marked to make some headway.

Naturally with any science I would say I’d like to follow up on what this book presents, seeing as it’s from 2010, to see if any further evidence has been found to support or refute what is seen here. But nothing the book reports seems out of line. With the only issue really being how early in the book Steele points out someone calling him out on not including disabilities as a contingent identity, and he failed to include that on the multitudes of identities on the cover I have. It’s a nitpick but in this world of attempting to make people welcome — of equity — it’s also important.

But it’s a fascinating book and I would recommend anyone read it. Steele keeps it engaging and presents each of his colleagues in a slight, but painted imagery that individualizes them and helps to feel like I’m in the lab and finding these data with them.