I originally picked up this book because I was intrigued by the idea that this was a book that involves research conducted with Nikole Hannah Jones, Cornel, West, Michael Shur, Shonda Rhimas, Ava DuVernay, etc. There's a long, long list of talented individuals that the author supposedly consulted for this book... so much so that the book actually ends on page 165! It's then followed by eight pages of acknowledgements, fourteen pages' worth of appendices, over fifty-plus pages of footnotes, an 11-page index, and a lengthy biography about how groundbreaking this Harvard professor's work is.

It's funny, there's an old joke that goes, "How can you tell if someone went to Harvard?" And the answer is, "Don't worry, they'll mention it..."

Over the years, I've come to develop quite a distaste for the rampant ego that's found among a lot of Ivy League culture. Case in point, at work I'm taking part in a leadership training right now that involves keynote presentations from experts in the field of leadership who then talk with company senior executives and have a conversation about how theory and practice apply to our company. The one from this past week was moderated by a Harvard Business School professor who interviewed our President of News & Networks and the General Manager of one of our most successful brands... two women who, between them have decades of experience and perspective to share... and the Harvard Business School professor talked for 90% of the presentation, mostly about her own research and her own perspectives on things, to the point where the division President and brand GM weren't left with much more to say than, "Oh wow, that's a really interesting insight..." before the moderator would just push forward with talk about her own experience, research, etc. all over again.

And that was kind of the experience of reading this book as well. The promise of all kinds of different perspectives from people across a wide swath of professions (entertainment, business, community organizing, politics, technology, nonprofit work, etc.)... and at the end of the day, their contribution was little more than as a footnote in a traditionally published academic paper that's primarily used in the context of, "See? This person agrees with me."

All that said, I could have forgiven all of that if there was something interesting or worth considering in terms of ideas in the book. But there aren't. The entire book is basically explaining that bias exists (no shit) and that some people are doing amazing work to try and subvert or overcome those biases (again, no shit). There are chapters literally titled "Strategies for Transformation" and "Solutions for Building an Inclusive Society" and those strategies and solutions are basically, "You should read the work of these other people" and "That person's work has some good ideas you should check out."

I wanted to like this book, but everything about it just rubbed me the wrong way. I feel like I've learned more about cognitive bias and perception from Wikipedia articles than I did from this post-grad term paper masquerading as a book.

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Created Jan 18, 2025 at 2:26pm • Submit your own review...