Letters in Black and White is an epistolary correspondence between a white woman and black man who are both concerned with the condition of contemporary race relations. The book is a defense of classical liberalism as a guiding ideology for understanding and improving race in America. The authors object to the use of race as a rigid identity, especially in schools, universities, and the workplace. As Twyman starts his correspondence with Richmond: “There are 40,000,000 black individuals with 40,000,000 different stories. Not everyone can correspond with everyone else, but we can get to know and see each other as individuals.” And thus starts an extraordinary correspondence across the color line that sees these two strangers become friends as they wrestle with their different ideas; a diversity, equity, and inclusion bureaucracy; and a vocal illiberal minority on how to imagine a new American identity.

Reception to follow