Essential Books

Books can change lives. I certainly have been changed by my reading in recent years. Three books stand out. I regard them as essential reading. Add two more if you are of the Christian persuasion.

Ibram X. Kendi. How to Be An Antiracist. [New York: One Worlds 2019.]

Antiracism is a concept that will transform your thinking. Kendi’s book which is an engaging blend of memoir, history and social analysis addresses the central divide between racism and antiracism.

There is no neutrality in the racism struggle. The opposite of “racist” isn’t “not racist.” It is “antiracist.” What’s the difference? One endorses either the idea of a racial hierarchy as a racist, or racial equality as an anti-racist. One either believes problems are rooted in groups of people, as a racist, or locates the roots of problems in power and policies, as an anti-racist. One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an anti-racist. There is no in-between safe space of "not racist." The claim of "non-racist" neutrality is a mask for racism.

Those who are parents or caregivers will find Kendi’s companion book—Anriracist Baby—a helpful way of sharing his ideas with children.

Kendi is the founding director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University and a columnist at The Atlantic.

Jennifer L. Eberhard, Ph.D. Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice that Shapes what we See, Think and Do [New York: Viking, 2019.

Bryan Stevenson rightly calls this book “groundbreaking.” Informed by the author’s life experience, Biased brings together key research findings.about how racial bias works in our minds and in our society.

“This book is an examination of implicit bias – what it is, where it comes from, how it affects us, and how we can address it. Implicit bias is not a new way of calling someone a racist. In fact, you don't have to be a racist at all to be influenced by it. Implicit bias is a kind of distorting lens that's a product of both the architecture of our brain and the disparities in our society.”

Jennifer Eberhardt is a professor of psychology at Stanford University. She received a MacArthur “genius” grant in 2014.

Isabel Wilkerson. Caste: The Origin of our Discontents.[New York: Random House, 2020]

This highly regarded book by Isabel Wilkerson, the author of The Warmth of Other Suns (winner of the Pulitzer Prize), has proven to be an arresting experience for me. She develops the powerful idea of caste, linking the caste systems of America, Nazi Germany and India. Wilkerson goes to explore the relationship between racism and casteism:

“Caste is the granting or withholding of respect, status, honor, attention, privileges, resources, benefit of the doubt, and human kindness to someone on the basis of their perceived rank or standing in the hierarchy. .

“What is the difference between racism and casteism? Because caste and race are interwoven in America, it can be hard to separate the two. Any action or institution that mocks, harms, assumes, or attaches inferiority or stereotype on the basis of the social construct of race can be considered racism. Any action or structure that seeks to limit, hold back, or put someone in a defined ranking, seeks to keep someone in their place by elevating or denigrating that person on the basis of their perceived category, can be seen as casteism.

“Casteism is the investment in keeping the hierarchy as it is in order to maintain your own ranking, advantage, privilege, or just elevate yourself above others or keep others beneath you. . .

“In the United States, racism and casteism frequently occur at the same time, or overlap or figure into the same scenario. Cast isms is about positioning and restricting those positions, vis-à-vis others. What race and its precursor, racism, do extraordinarily well is to confuse or distract from the underlying structural and more powerful Sith Lord of cast. Like the cast on a broken arm, like the cast in a play, a caste system holds everyone in a fixed place.”

For White Christians

Robert P. Jones. White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity. [New York: Simon & Schuster, 2020.]

In an earlier book on The End of White Christian America Robert Jones addressed some of the demographic shifts that are reshaping American religion. In this timely assessment Jones, weaves together personal memoir, history and survey data to paint a searing portrait of the role of American Christianity in shaping and perpetuating white supremacy.

“The historical record of lived Christianity,’ Jones contends, “reveals that Christian theology and institutions have been the central cultural tentpole that holding up the very idea of white supremacy.”

Austin Channing Brown. I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness. [New York: Penguin Random House, 2018.]

In this compelling memoir, Austin Channing Brown, describes her experiences navigating evangelical culture, speaking broadly to those of us who are white Christians. Among the many themes she addresses forthrightly is the issue of dialogue and reconciliation. In words that spoke directly to me and to those of us who are white Christians:

“ . . . dialogue is productive toward reconciliation only when it leads to action—when it inverts power and pursues justice for those who are most marginalized. Unfortunately most ‘reconciliation conversations’ spend most of their time teaching white people about racism. In too many churches and organizations, listening to the hurt and pain of people of color is the end of the road rather than the beginning.”