This book is not a hero’s journey. It is for those of us who have hit rock bottom in the human story of race. We’ve come to the end of our whiteness. We want to be honest about our place in the human story and heal from our internalized racism. We want to be anti-racist. When I say “we,” for the purposes of this book, I mean anybody who identifies as white.
Let’s be clear: even as we do this work through the lens of race, race itself is a social construct and not a biological one. It is a human-invented classification system.
So, yes, this is a book written to white people. While white people are centered as the audience, my hope is that the fruit would be “for” a larger liberation of all people, as we as white people humbly do what we need to do now. Think of this book as a moment – a side conversation – when we, as white people, gather in small groups in church basements or around tables to have a long conversation. The intention is to heal from our internalized racism so that we may do less harm.
From “Recovering Racists: Dismantling White Supremacy and Reclaiming Our Humanity” by Idelette McVicker