Books like Think Like a White Man

Damn.\ DAMN!\ This is the funniest and most cutting book I have read in a long, long time. I haven’t laughed out loud while reading in years. I mean, I’ve smiled. I’ve chuckled. I may, may have even snickered aloud while reading Glen Duncan’s I, Lucifer. But actual, out loud, genuine guffaws? I can’t remember the last book that made me roar with laughter.Nels Abbey's book did that, and did it often. It has a laugh-per-word ratio that would make a seasoned stand-up comic envious. But there is far, far more than humor in Think Like a White Man.This is the sort of book that makes you laugh aloud, and then a microsecond later stop laughing to sit for a second in thought before exclaiming ‘Shiiit. That is brutal.”Nels Abbey has written (as a thermonuclear debut novel) one of the best books on race I’ve encountered. The central conceit is that Abbey is recounting the advice and wisdom of one Dr. Boule Whytelaw III, a very successful businessman of color, a Professor of White People Studies and the world’s leading expert on Caucasians.Boule has risen to the top of the corporate world through any means necessary, and is looking to pass his learnings down to ambitious young POC. In his own words, Boule has spent his professional life ‘under more mediocre white men than Stormy Daniels’ and wishes to help young black people avoid the mistakes he made on the way to the top.And what advice it is. Whytelaw (not his real name- he changed it from a black-sounding name to enhance his career prospects) essentially tells his readers that in order to succeed you must emulate the worst and most Machiavellian tendencies of that driving force behind almost every tale of corporate greed and malfeasance – the White Male.And so he dispenses his corporate guerrilla tactics. Discard compassion. Obtain power and use it. Don’t be an activist. Tell people you like Elvis, enjoy the works of Clint Eastwood, and that Robin Williams was better than Eddie Murphy or Richard Pryor. Pretend that ‘meritocracy’ is something that actually exists… and so on, all told with a comic wit that should propel Abbey into the first ranks of literary satirists. This is not, however, a book for the easily offended, or for readers looking for reasons to cry ‘reverse racism’ or ‘all lives matter’ – if that’s your bent, read elsewhere, as Abbey has you squarely in his sights and takes no prisoners.As a white male I found Abbey’s novel to be hilariously cutting, and his observations about the power structure in the corporate world - and the casual racism that still infests such environments - spot on. This may not be easy reading for some white people, but if you’re prepared to recognize the reality that racism exists and hurts the prospects of many POC, and are able to laugh at some of the hypocrisies and ridiculousness of Anglophone culture then this may be one of the best reads you can treat yourself to this year.If you’re a person of color, well, Abbey states that this book is written primarily for you. I imagine there are levels of subtlety, humor and truth here that I completely missed.Anyway, buy this book and read it. Abbey is a bright new light, and Think Like A White Man is a literary cruise missile (with a smiley face painted on it) aimed directly at the prejudice that lurks in the structures of our society.Five near-identical male CEOs from near-identical backgrounds (but all of course promoted on ‘merit’) out of five.