★★★★★ 5
Powerful, challenging, and inspiring. An essential read
Format: Hardcover
This is a book that I challenge all my white friends to read, no matter where you stand on the spectrum of confronting white privilege and systemic racism. Michael Eric Dyson delivers a powerful, engaging, personal, informational, inspiring sermon that’s essential at this moment in time when racial division is especially high.
I urge you to read with an open heart and mind, to set aside your discomfort and listen to Dyson’s plea for white Americans to reckon with the harsh truths of racism.
Dyson is an ordained minister, so what better way to present this than as a sermon. He divides it into multiple sections: in “Hymns of Praise,” he cleverly shares hymns in the form of rap lyrics; in “Scripture Reading,” he quotes Martin Luther King Jr.; in the main sermon, he addresses whiteness specifically (including white innocence, white fragility, and white privilege) and then segues into a section about what it’s like to be black in America. Following that is “Benediction,” one of my favorite parts: in it he offers practical suggestions for what white people can do to make things better.
The whole thing is incredibly current and topical, with commentary on Black Lives Matter, the recent election and Donald Trump’s rise to power.
For white people who seek to understand more about racism and white privilege in America (and really, that should be all of us), this is the book to read. It was literally written for us.
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Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2017


