SIX STARS.
This is the book that every white Evangelical should read. It is direct,
clear, honest, funny, and entirely human while also embracing the love and
divine calling of Jesus in our lives to effect change in our world as we bring
the healing and the forgiveness and the restoration of God.
A lot of white people are looking to understand why it is that “suddenly”
there is so much uproar and so many discussions about white people, white
Evangelicals, and the white church. This is a good book to help walk through
this, but even more it is a book that will help us white people look at
ourselves more clearly and with fewer filters to smooth out our wrinkles and
hide our flaws.
It’s not necessarily an easy book to read, although it is written with a
clear, bracing, compassionate style. It will be hard to read because it is like
having someone sit you down and say, “As your friend, I need to tell you
something about myself that I also see in you, and it’s something that’s
bringing harm to people.”
This book will not change you, of course, because no book can do that. BUT
if you read the book and feel any sense of empathy, compassion, or community
with the Beloved Community, to use the phrase that Dr. King popularized, you
will find some useful tools to unpack what it is about us white people that we
can remain so unknowing about how we are acting to the rest of the world, and
offer some great ways to take action, at many levels of ability, to make
changes in ourselves and in the world that has become so scarred, broken, and
hopeless.
When I read works by people like Kerry Connelly, I am inspired and a little
wistful that I wish I could be this direct, open, and honest about myself and
the world I inhabit. But—I’m not waiting for that moment; instead, I’m taking
what I learned and I’m going to apply it.
From the publisher:
“A no-nonsense call to action for all those willing to confront their complicity, Good White Racist? promises ‘This is going to be hard, and you are going to be uncomfortable. But it will be worth it.'” – Foreword Reviews
good · white · racist noun
A well-intentioned person of European descent who is nonetheless complicit in a culture of systemic racism;
A white person who would rather stay comfortable than do the work of antiracism
When it comes to race, most white Americans are obsessed with two things: defending our own inherent goodness and maintaining our own comfort levels. Too often, this means white people assume that to be racist, one has to be openly hateful and willfully discriminatory—you know, a bad person. And we know we’re good, Christian people, right? But you don’t have to be wearing a white hood or shouting racial epithets to be complicit in America’s racist history and its ongoing systemic inequality.
In Good White Racist?, Kerry Connelly exposes the ways white people participate in, benefit from, and unknowingly perpetuate racism—despite their best “good person” intentions. Good White Racist? unpacks the systems that maintain the status quo, keep white people comfortable and complicit, and perpetuate racism in the United States and elsewhere. Combining scholarly research with her trademark New Jersey snark, Connelly shows us that even though it may not be our fault or choice to participate in a racist system, we all do, and it’s our responsibility to do something about it.