A TLS FINANCIAL TIMES NEW STATESMAN GUARDIAN OBSERVER AND WHITE REVIEW BOOK OF THE YEARFINALIST FOR THE 2021 ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN NONFICTION From awardwinning writer Claudia Rankine the stunning followup to Citizen and Dont Let Me Be Lonely Riveting Bernardine Evaristo TLS Books of the YearBrilliant Gary Younge New Statesman Books of the YearTimely and powerful Fatima Bhutto Financial TimesOne of our times most incisive brilliant and necessary intellectuals Sen Hewitt Irish TimesRanking is a writer of genius Jeremy NoelTod Sunday TimesAt home and in government contemporary America finds itself riven by a culture war in which aggression and defensiveness alike are on the rise. It is not alone. In such partisan conditions how can humans best approach one another across our differencesTaking the study of whiteness and white supremacy as a guiding light Claudia Rankine explores a series of real encounters with friends and strangers each disrupting the false comfort of spaces where our public and private lives intersect like the airport the theatre the dinner party and the voting booth and urges us to enter into the conversations which could offer the only humane pathways through this moment of division.Just Us is an invitation to discover what it takes to stay in the room together and to breach the silence guilt and violence that surround whiteness. Brilliantly arranging essays images and poems along with the voices and rebuttals of others it counterpoints Rankines own text with facingpage notes and commentary and closes with a bravura study of women confronting the political and cultural implications of dyeing their hair blonde.Wry vulnerable and prescient this is Rankines most intimate work less interested in being right than in being true and being together.