How to Fight Racism: Courageous Christianity and the Journey Toward Racial Justice, Jemar Tisby, Zondervan Reflective, 2021.
Reviewed by Ray Higgins
The Quaker author, Parker Palmer, wrote a little book over 20 years ago titled, Let Your Life Speak. Jemar Tisby’s life speaks through his latest book, How to Fight Racism: Courageous Christianity and the Journey toward Racial Justice. Tisby’s life speaks as powerfully in this book as it does in his first book, The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism, which is a New York Times best-seller.
Jemar Tisby is an impressive man. In addition to being a NYT best-selling author, he is an historian, national speaker, educator, minister and social justice entrepreneur.
For over a decade, he has been writing and speaking about racial justice, religion, politics and culture. He is the president of The Witness: A Black Christian Collective. He is also cohost of the Pass the Mic podcast. He grew up just north of Chicago, earning an undergraduate degree from Notre Dame and the Master of Divinity degree from the Reformed Theological Seminary.
Tisby was recently named to his new position as assistant director of Narrative and Advocacy at the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University, where Ibram X. Kendi is the director and founder.
At the beginning of Tisby’s career, he worked for Teach for America as a teacher and principal in a public charter school in an Arkansas Delta county seat town. He is currently working on a Ph.D. in history at the University of Mississippi, where he is in the dissertation stage. (He is the only person this writer knows who has written and published two books while writing his dissertation.)
Tisby has been interviewed by the Washington Post, Vox, CNN, and the Atlantic. He speaks in a variety of forums, including churches. During the fall of 2019, he made several presentations at the Race in the Rock Series that was created by Dr. Preston Clegg and Second Baptist Church, in downtown Little Rock, Arkansas, in partnership with Arkansas Baptist College, an historic Black college (HBCU). His presentations were based on his first book. In January 2021, the book launch for Tisby’s second book, How to Fight Racism, was live-streamed on Facebook from the worship center of Second Baptist Church.
During the summer of 2020, Rev. Matt Dodrill, the new senior pastor of Pulaski Heights Baptist Church in Little Rock, led the church through a summer study of race relations and racial justice, beginning that study with Tisby’s first book.
It is important to understand how interrelated these two books are, and how well the first book, an explanation of American history, prepares the reader for the second book, a primer on being a racial justice person.
Tisby’s writing style and content are as engaging as hearing him speak on his podcasts and in lectures. His stories, examples and analyses help readers understand racism and discover how they can embody the character and lifestyle of a racial justice person.
My goal, in this review, is to encourage individuals and churches to use these two books to learn about race relations, racism and racial justice so that they can embody these truths and values and join the journey.
HOW TO FIGHT RACISM
The opening chapter carries the title of the book. The rest of the book is divided into three sections: awareness, relationships and commitment. Each section has three chapters. Each chapter begins with the word “how.” The author’s intent is to inform, inspire and equip readers with the knowledge, skills and capacity to fight racism, be courageous Christians, and join the journey toward racial justice.
Chapter one introduces the topic of how to fight racism. It begins with the story of the death of George Floyd by the knee of a police officer and includes a helpful explanation of the meaning of words such as Black, equity and equality. The author presents his practical strategy for fighting racism, which he calls “the ARC of Racial Justice.” ARC stands for awareness, relationships and commitment, which are the three sections of the book.
In this first chapter, the author gives a brief and inspiring description of the life of Fannie Lou Hamer, who lived in Ruleville, Mississippi. It includes her calling to be a voting rights activist, and the hardships and injustices that she suffered at the hands of white supremacists. Many of the stories Tisby tells in his books, such as this description of Hamer and her life, would make instructive and memorable sermon and teaching illustrations.
Part one of the book, entitled Awareness, introduces the first idea in “the ARC of Racial Justice.” The chapters in this section include: “How to Explain Race and the Image of God”; “How to Explore Your Racial Identity;” and “How to Study the History of Race.”
Like other influential theologians, Tisby grounds his work in a fundamental and powerful theological concept. For him, it’s the theology of the image of God. “Christianity teaches that all people are created in the very image of God. We are God’s crowning creation, and each person is precious simply because they are human. Their physical appearance—including skin color—are part of bearing God’s image and should be respected as such” (p. 9). This leads the author to describe the Christian picture of eternity as “a multihued, multilingual, multinational, multiethnic fellowship with others in a never-ending worship of the triune God” (p. 26).
In Chapter three, the author guides the reader to explore one’s racial identity through the presentation of a “Racial/Cultural Identity Development Model” and the “Stages of Racial Identity Development: White Identity.” He provides a helpful outline for writing one’s racial autobiography, which would be a worthy exercise for individual and groups to do and share.
Chapter four provides instruction about studying the history of race. The topics presented in this chapter are good weapons against the arsenal of conspiracy theories and attempts to rewrite history that too many Christians, in particular, find persuasive.
Part two focuses on relationships. The chapters include: “How to Do Reconciliation Right;” “How to Make Friends;” and “How to Build Diverse Coalitions.”
Tisby begins chapter five on reconciliation, describing “the talk” that Black parents have with their children, while many white parents are oblivious to this freedom-preserving, life-preserving talk. He describes “racial justice practices” for churches to engage with their membership: incorporate lamentation in worship, corporate confession of the sin of racism, acknowledging the church’s racial history, churches reconciling with people it has harmed through racism, and preaching on racial reconciliation.
Chapter six introduces the importance of making friends. This includes guidance for meeting people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds and talking with racial justice resisters.
Chapter seven addresses how we can build diverse communities. Topics include building diversity into your church/organization, adopting a statement on racial justice, pursuing diversity when your organization remains homogenous, and when to leave an organization because of its racism. When reading this chapter, I thought of how revealing and powerful the “photo ops” are of the previous president’s cabinet, staff, and gatherings and the current president’s cabinet, staff and gatherings.
Part three focuses on commitment. The chapters include: “How to Work for Racial Justice;” “How to Fight Systemic Racism;” and “How to Orient Your Life to Racial Justice.”
Chapter eight explores how to work for racial justice. It begins with a number: Three hundred eighty-one. That is the number of days the Montgomery bus boycott lasted. This boycott succeeded through real commitment. That commitment was informed by the themes of loving God, loving neighbor and bearing witness to Christ. Racial justice practices include: stewarding one’s budget for justice, holding candidate forums, hosting voter registration drives and freedom schools, starting a community development corporation, and sponsoring a public school.
Chapter nine explains systemic racism, a reality that many non-minority persons have trouble believing exists. Systemic racism deniers limit their thinking to individual behavior and individual solutions. They are blind to the social and systemic expressions of racism and racial injustice. In this chapter, the author explores voting rights, immigration reform, reparations, criminal justice reform, and equitable funding of public schools.
The final chapter focuses on how to orient one’s life to racial justice. How do we live in a way that our entire lives are a witness for racial justice? Tisby offers 10 racial justice practices.
In the conclusion, Tisby writes: “The journey for racial justice continues, but the music we hear along the way is not a funeral dirge; it is festival music leading us to a banquet of blessings and a harvest of righteousness” (p. 206).
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
Although one can start by reading either book, the first book does provide a foundation for understanding racism in the United States, especially in the history of denominations and churches. This historical study does create awareness and understanding, which leads to the second book which addresses the readers’ questions about how to understand racism and become involved in the work of racial justice.
Individuals can read and learn from both books. Yet they are designed to be read and discussed in community, in small groups, and as a church. Studying both books will take Christians and churches on the journey to cleanse our lives and churches of the sin of racism. And, that should lead individuals and churches into doing the good and Christ-like work of justice for all.
— Ray Higgins is Executive Coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Arkansas, Little Rock, Ark.
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