America's Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America

If it were up to me, I would require every American, especially every white American to read this book now and talk about it. I'll have the talking opportunity in a couple of weeks when my local reading group gets together.
Jim Wallis is a hero of mine. He is the founder of Sojourners, an

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evangelical Christian who understands that the faith is about how we treat each other. His springboard for this little book is the fact that by 2045 the United States will no longer be a country with a white majority. The European American population will be a minority among minorities. The trouble comes when this white minority continues to cling to its white privilege, which benefits us every day in ways that we white people are ignorant of.
Wallis chooses statistics carefully and notes when they are not available. (For example, nobody is keeping a total of the number of men of color killed annually by police officers in this country.) He then analyzes what he sees and offers the beginnings of solutions. Chapter titles give an overview of the contents:
Race Is a Story; The Parables of Ferguson and Baltimore; The Original Sin and Its Legacy; Repentance Means More than Just Saying You're Sorry; Dying To Whiteness; A Segregated Church or a Beloved Community?; From Warriors to Guardians; The New Jim Crow and Restorative Justice; Welcoming the Stranger; Crossing the Bridge to a New America.
White parents may be able to guess the content of the talk that all black parents have with their young sons about police officers. This white woman was incredibly naive about the effect of the War Against Drugs on the black community. The arguments grow out of Wallis's faith, but people of all faiths and no faith will be welcomed and challenged by reading this book.

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