Andre Henry For many, the fight for racial justice begins with a wake-up call that demands we unlearn the whitewashed histories we were taught Because most people don’t know what racism is, they don’t know how to fight it. This is even true of the millions of people who’ve taken to the streets because…
Susan K. Smith It’s a matter of power Karen Armstrong writes in The Case for God that in spite of the fact that all of the world’s faiths insist that “true spirituality must be expressed consistently in practical…
Catherine Meeks God does not coerce us Perhaps the greatest challenge for effecting social change has less to do with the power of racist systems than it is about our refusal to significantly alter the priorities of…
Uncategorized Racism as Institutional Injustice In March 2012 an African American defense attorney named Bryan Stevenson gave a TED Talk called “We Need to Talk about an Injustice.” While not yet the household name he…
Heather McGhee The old zero-sum paradigm is not just counterproductive; it’s a lie. The logical extension of the zero-sum story is that a future without racism is something white people should fear, because there will be nothing good for them in it. They…
Lisa Sharon Harper Any attempt to repair what race broke in our nation must contend with what race broke in our faith. The varying perceptions of the Christian story divided our nation in antebellum times into two main camps: those who reconciled slavery and those who opposed slavery, both based on biblical…
Uncategorized Racism as Relational Division In 1994, Spencer Perkins and Chris Rice published a book that became something of a sensation in the American church. The book, More Than Equals: Racial Healing for the Sake…
Heather McGhee Everyone would have been safer Black writers before me, from James Baldwin to Toni Morrison, have made the point that racism is a poison first consumed by its concocters. What’s clearer now in our time…
Justin Phillips How does it feel to be a problem? I am a problem. This acknowledgment is not about self-hatred or performative white guilt, but rather a reckoning with my history, that I have either benefited from someone else’s hardship or gotten benefits of…
Robert P. Jones The Sacred Work of White Discomfort by Robert P. Jones https://robertpjones.substack.com/p/the-sacred-work-of-white-discomfort
Ibram X. Kendi We must first take account of race As President Lyndon B. Johnson said in 1965, “You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the…
Uncategorized Entitlement Another frequently heard concern regards entitlements, and whether reparations might contribute to a culture of entitlement among African Americans. We will limit ourselves to two responses. First, this concern fundamentally…
Heather McGhee Today our schools are nearly as segregated as they were before Brown v. Board of Education In my gut, I’ve always known that laws are merely expressions of a society’s dominant beliefs. It’s the beliefs that must shift in order for outcomes to change. When policies…
Susan K. Smith The “thingification” of Black people The Puritans relied upon the Calvinist theology to which they adhered, as well as the Bible, to justify their belief that God had created some human beings inferior to them.…
Catherine Meeks “Reconciliation” is “a place of meeting” One of the oldest meanings of the word, “reconciliation” is “a place of meeting.” This stresses that overcoming alienation requires coming together. If we are to deepen understanding so that…
Ibram X. Kendi The common idea of claiming “color blindness” The common idea of claiming “color blindness” is akin to the notion of being “ not racist” - as with the “not racist,” the color-blind individual, by ostensibly failing to…
Uncategorized Contributions of this book Though we intend for this book to be introductory, we also hope that it will make substantive contributions to larger conversations regarding reparations both inside and outside of communities of…
Kerry Connelly Hard to break free It takes an incredibly strong, brave, and independent person to break free from the tribe - to go against the patterns of behavior and the roles you’ve been assigned to…
Susan K. Smith Jesus seemed absent, his words ignored Our beloved Bible gave us the Great Commandment, found in the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It is significant that these words are found in all three of…
Catherine Meeks Proximity without a process Physical proximity to one another can provide diverse peoples opportunities for caring relationship. However, without sustained interaction and expression of intimacy among people of different identities, the stage is set…
Ibram X. Kendi Denial is the heartbeat of racism It is hard for me to believe I finished high school in the year 2000 touting so many racist ideas. A racist culture had handed me the ammunition to shoot…
