Conversations on Race

I contributed to the new release, Beautifully Distinct: Conversations with Friends on Faith, Life, and Culture. Here in an expert from my chapter:

Racism and society

I often compare racism to pollution. It is created by humans, it negatively impacts every one of us, and because it has been around for so long, we have become comfortable with its existence: so comfortable that some would deny it is even here.

In their classic book, Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America, Christian sociologists Michael O. Emerson and Christian Smith describe the American nation as a “racialized society.” They write:

“A racialized society is a society wherein race matters profoundly for differences in life experiences, life opportunities, and social relationships. A racialized society can also be said to be ‘a society that allocates differential economic, political, social, and even psychological rewards to groups along racial lines; lines that are socially constructed.’”

God has given us ethnic and cultural differences, which are not for the purposes of division, yet that is the exact purpose of the social construct of race. Race is a defining part of our society—affecting basic things such as where we live, as well as educational achievement and financial prospects. The racializing of America’s society has a long and often neglected history. The idea of race as division was the seed planted in America’s soil which birthed the trees that bore the fruit of racism. This fruit is tilled, fertilized, and replanted throughout generations, until we look up one day to realize that there is a whole forest around us with tall trees entrapping us all, making it hard to see the light.

Continue reading my excerpt, purchase everywhere books are sold.