Customer Reviews

No Partiality : The Idolatry of Race and the New Humanity

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As the author of No Partiality, I want to express how deeply offended I am at the comments written by "A Reader" in the review on this page entitled "Blacks Need to Read This Book." Since it has the potential to be extremely misleading about the book, that review must be countered by my own comment in response.

I could not disagree more with the sentiments expressed by the reviewer, and I have great difficulty believing he/she actually read the book. I simply cannot imagine how anything I wrote in the book could be thought to support the views expressed in that review. There is certainly nothing in the book to suggest that African Americans "are the most racist people of all." Quite to the contrary, it is not possible to read the book and draw that conclusion from my arguments. But it is possible to bring that existent belief to a reading of the book, and be unpersuaded by the book's arguments because of an inability or unwillingness to think otherwise. Indeed, there is a section in the book that discusses just this phenomenon.

I argue in the book that race and racism are the historical and social constructions of a dominant sociocultural group, and as such they structure and maintain the position and advantage of this group in relation to other people groups. The analysis in the book serves to focus attention on how this everyday world of race and racism is structured and maintained. This analysis moves toward a discussion of the framework for reconciliation as suggested by both sociocultural analysis and the impulses in the Christian tradition. Thus the book is a contribution to the development of a theology of racial reconciliation, one that will warrant and encourage the anti-racism initiatives of Christian communities.

I am incredibly offended at the last posters review. This is no place to espouse such uninformed racist attitudes. I am white and I have met many white people who I would say are racist. People from both sides of the spectrum need this book. To label this book as for "them" as the last reviewer did, is ridiculous and makes it obvious that he or she is one person who truly needs to take what this book is about to heart. I apologize to anyone from any of the groups this person targeted and I hope that this post can offer you at least a little bit of encouragement.