Simpson, Jennifer S. I Have Been Waiting: Race and U.S. Higher Education. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003. 256 pp.

by David M. Jones

It is a challenging task to assess the impact of identity politics and multiculturalism on higher education in the United States. In I Have Been Waiting: Race and U.S. Higher Education, Jennifer S. Simpson makes such an assessment, suggesting that all progressive teachers must continue the energetic "anti-racism" (17) that was characteristic of earlier resistance to white supremacy. This course of action is suggested by the title of the text, which comes from a remark made by a black female student during a discussion of diversity at a midwestern seminary: "I have been waiting for the day when white folks start to deal with their own racism" (x). This comment energized the author to identify and challenge racism in higher education, among feminists, and in her personal life. As a whole, this text was thought-provoking in its insights and adventurous in its approach, although the author's ambitious attempt to comment in detail on racial politics in classroom teaching, in feminist epistemologies, and in history and personal memory reaches too far at times. Beyond its expansive scope, however, this book offers many practical tips for engaging European-American faculty, feminists, and students and faculty of color in honest conversation and action.