What do you think?
Rate this book
238 pages, Hardcover
First published January 19, 2016
I recently gave a talk on this book to some church-going friends. I summarise that talk here without yet knowing what effect it had on them.
... Butch’s mom told me about the experiences all the men in her family—her father, her brothers, her husband, and her sons—had with the Detroit police. Then she said something I will never forget as long as I live. “So I tell all of my children,” she said, “if you are ever lost and can’t find your way back home, and you see a policeman, quickly duck behind a building or down a stairwell. When the policeman is gone, come out and find your own way back home.”Wallis continues with a description of “the talk” that African Americans have with their children. Most white families have no familiarity with the term “the talk” and what it means.
The most controversial sentence I ever wrote was not about abortion, gay marriage, the wars in Vietnam or Iraq, elections, or anything to do with national or church politics. It was a statement about the founding of the United States. Here’s the sentence: “The United States of America was established as a white society, founded upon the near genocide of another race and then the enslavement of yet another.”Chapter 4. Repentance Means More Than Just Saying You’re Sorry
If the near genocide and historic oppression of America’s Native American peoples and the enslavement and debasing of African peoples for profit were both sins, how can we possible respond today? And if the consequences of those sins still linger in the many ways we have been discussing, what do we do now?Jim Wallis proceeds from this point to answer that question.
In the deepest and most honest sense, the real issue at stake in US racial history is the persistence of white privilege, which is profoundly rooted in the ideology of white supremacy.He proceeds from this point to discuss his experience with antiracism training.
This chapter will explore the biblical call to multiracial communities of faith, how we’re doing in regard to that call, and what practical steps can be taken to make real progress toward that wonderful but difficult goal of a beloved community.Chapter Chapter 7. From Warriors to Guardians
This chapter explores the ways we can improve the way we do policing in America and ways to reform our criminal justice system. .....Chapter 8. The New Jim Crow and Restorative Justice
“The problem comes when those who have been chosen to be our guardians behave instead like warriors or soldiers—a crucial difference.
As a result of our profoundly unequal law enforcement system, we have seen much of the progress of the civil rights movement stalled, and in many cases rolled back, in a number of insidious ways. And the worst parts of this process have happened under the very noses of those of us who have fought for civil rights since the 1960s.Chapter 9. Welcoming the Stranger