Well I definitely learned a lot!

Baratunde Thurston writes for The Onion, among other things, and he brings that sense of humor along for this read. He also reveals a lot about himself and his upbringing, and makes some incredibly salient points about the status of race relations in our world today. You know, in between the advice about how to find a black friend:

“If you find yourself in the unfortunate position of being black-friendless, you can either go to the nearest black church and strike up a conversation, or just fire up Facebook, search for “black people,” and start clicking “Add Friend” on the names in the resulting lists. Technology is amazing and quite a time-saver.”

or how to select food at a picnic without looking like a stereotype:

“If there are segregated plates of fruit, I suggest a four-to-one ratio of non-watermelon to watermelon. Look, they know you want it. YOU know you want it. So if you conspicuously avoid it, that’s an admission right there: guilt by omission.”

It’s a very funny book, and while I love that he’s teaching with humor and honesty, I think it’s a shame that a lot of people who ought to read it, probably won’t. But I feel like anyone can learn something new from it — I found some new perspectives for sure — and it’s definitely a fun read.