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UNITED METHODISTS STAND AGAINST RACISM

 

Resources for Adults

As United Methodists examine ways to end racial injustice, offering resources about racism can be part of the solution. The recommended readings for adults on this page include feature resources for church audiences and for mission teams.

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Featured Adult Resources

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• White Fragility: Why is it So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo explores the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality.
• How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi weaves an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science with the author’s personal story of awakening to antiracism and goes beyond the awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a just and equitable society.
• So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo guides readers of all races through subjects ranging from intersectionality and affirmative action to "model minorities" in an attempt to make the seemingly impossible possible: honest conversations about race and racism, and how they infect almost every aspect of American life.
• America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America by Jim Wallis examines the deep roots of America's problem with race, with the country's foundation tied to the near extermination of one race of people and the enslavement of another.
• Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do by Jennifer L. Eberhardt states that we do not have to be racist to be biased and offers a reasoned look into the effects of implicit racial bias, ranging from the subtle to the dramatic.
• Tears We Cannot Stop by Michael Eric Dyson is a short, emotional, powerful book that all Americans who care about the current and long-burning crisis in race relations will want to read.
• The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James Cone explores two of the most emotionally charged symbols in the history of the African American community and their interconnection in the history and souls of black folk.
• Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideals in America by Ibram X Kendi is the National Book Award-winning history of how racist ideas were created, spread, and deeply rooted in American society.
• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates is a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son.
• Why Are All of the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations about Race by Beverly Daniel Tatum argues that straight talk about our racial identities is essential if we are serious about enabling communication across racial and ethnic divides.
• The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore uses alternating narratives that take readers from heart-wrenching losses to moments of surprising redemption in telling the story of a generation of boys trying to find their way in a hostile world.
• Comfort and Protest: The Apocalypse from a South African Perspective by Allan A. Boesak uses the context of the ongoing struggle in his country, South Africa, to write a powerful and urgent commentary on the Book of Revelation.
• Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson is a powerful true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us and a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice from one of the most influential lawyers of our time.
• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander is the 10th-anniversary edition of the iconic bestseller, "one of the most influential books of the past 20 years," according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.
• The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson tells how the 1915 to 1970 exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America and compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history.
• Mixed Blessings: A Guide to Multicultural and Multiethnic Relationships by Rhonda Berlin and Harriet Cannon uses the stories of 12 couples to give readers new ideas and tips on how to make multicultural relationships work.
• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead is the #1 New York Times bestseller chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South.
• The Inheritance Trilogy by NK Jemisin is an epic fantasy trilogy about a young woman summoned after her mother’s death to the floating city of Sky to claim a royal inheritance she never knew existed.
• When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America by Ira Katznelson recasts our understanding of 20th-century American history and demonstrates that all the key programs passed during the New Deal and Fair Deal era of the 1930s and 1940s were created in a deeply discriminatory manner.
• Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County by Kristen Green is an enlightening and deeply moving chronicle about compassion, forgiveness, and the meaning of home that explores our troubled racial past and its reverberations today.

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Featured Church Resources

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Church Resources

• Raising White Kids by Jennifer Harvey helps parents, teachers, and churches enter into a dialogue about the impact of racism on our children and offers guidance for sharing our commitment to equity and justice.
• The Merging of Lexington Conference Local Churches into the North-East Ohio Conference of the Methodist Church by James S. Thomas can be found on pages 25-33 in East Ohio Conference Journey - Streams of Faith.
• Anxious to Talk About It: Helping White Christians Talk Faithfully About Racism by Carolyn B. Helsel draws on her success as a pastor with white congregations to offer insight and tools to embrace, explore and work through the anxious feelings that often arise when talking about racism.

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Featured Missions Resources

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Missions Resources

• The White Savior Industrial Complex by Teju Cole proposes that “If we are going to interfere in the lives of others, a little due diligence is a minimum requirement.”
• Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa by Dambisa Moyo is an unsettling yet optimistic work that is a powerful challenge to the assumptions and arguments that support a profoundly misguided development policy in Africa.
• Consuming Mission: Towards a Theology of Short-term Mission and Pilgrimage by Robert Ellis Haynes uses relevant academic studies and original focus-group interviews to take important steps in offering a theological assessment of the practice of short-term missions and tools for subsequent mission training.