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REVIEW: Good White Racist?2

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. Get this book at online bookstores by using the links here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53003659-good-white-racist

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