Dismantling White Privilege, Power, and Supremacy: Reading List

The following reading list for AY20-21 course STH TC858 “Dismantling White Privilege, Power, and Supremacy” is published courtesy of course co-professors Bishop Susan Hassinger and Dean Teddy Hickman-Maynard. Much of the required reading list is available as eBooks through the STH Library for BU students, faculty, and staff here. 

Required Reading/Viewing

  • Anzaldua Gloria E. & Analouise Keating, eds. This Bridge We Call Home: Radical visions for Transformation (Routledge, 2002), pp. 540-576
  • Barndt, Joseph, Becoming an Anti-Racist Church (Fortress Press, 2011)
  • Brown Douglas, Kelley, Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God (Orbis Books, 2015)
  • Coates, Ta-Nehisi, Between the World and Me (Spiegel & Grau, 2015)
  • DiAngelo, Robin, White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism (Beacon Press, 2018)
  • Dube, Musa W., Power, Privilege and Profits: a Global Reflection (speech; on Blackboard Learn)
  • Hart, Drew G.I., Trouble I’ve Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism (Herald Press, 2016)
  • Harvey, Jennifer, Whiteness and Morality: Pursuing Racial Justice through Reparations and Sovereignty (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)
  • King, Martin Luther, Jr.: Letter from the Birmingham Jail
  • Pregeant, Russell, For the Healing of the Nation: A Biblical Vision (Cascade Books, 2016)

Recommended Reading and Viewing

African-American, Black Perspectives – from both African-American writers and others

  • Davis, Reginal F, The Black Church: Relevant or Irrelevant in the 21st Century (Smith & Helwys Publishing, 2010)
  • Dyson, Michael Eric, Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America (St. Martin’s Press, 2017)
  • Harding, Vincent, There Is a River: The Black Struggle for Freedom in America (A Harvest Book, Harcourt Brace & Company, 1981) – scholarly history of American slavery beginning from the shores of Africa through the passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution by a black scholar, professor, writer, and activist
  • James, Marlon, “Why I’m Done Talking about Diversity – or, Why We Should Try an All-White Diversity Panel”
  • Lincoln, C. Eric, Race, Religion, and the Continuing American Dilemma, revised edition (Hill and Wang, 1999 – focuses particularly on the role of the black church
  • Melish, Joanne Pope, Disowning Slavery: Gradual Emancipation and ‘Race’ in New England, 1780-1860) Cornell University Press, 1998) – traces the roots of slavery, abolitionism, and racism in New England – including treatment of free persons of color
  • Tatum, Beverly Daniel, PhD, “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” and Other Conversations about Race (Basic Books, 1997) – a psychologist explains the development of racial identity
  • Ward, Jesmyn editor, The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race (Scribner, 2017)
  • West, Cornel, Prophesy Deliverance! An Afro-American Revolutionary Christianity (Phladelphia, Westminster Press, 1982)

Asian-American Perspectives

  • Choi, Hee An, A Postcolonial Self: Korean Immigrant Theology and Church (SUNY Press, 2015)
  • Choi, Hee An, Korean Women and God: Experiencing God in a Multi-religious Colonial Context (Orbis Books, 2005)
  • Lee, Jung Young, Marginality: The Key to Multicultural Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995)
  • Liu, Eric, The Accidental Asian: Notes of a Native Speaker (Vintage Books, 1998) – essays by a second-generation Chinese-American political commentator & writer
  • Wu, Frank, Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White (Basic books, 2002)
  • Article in Washington Post: “How the Asians Became White”

Latinx/Hispanic Perspectives

  • Anzaldua, Gloria Evangelina, Borderlands/LaFrontera: the New Mestiza (aunt lute books, 1999, 4th ed.
  • Anzaldua, Gloria E. & Keating, Analouise, eds., This Bridge We Call Home: Radical isions for Transformation (Routledge, 2002)
  • Reyes, Patrick B., Nobody Cries When We Die: God, Community, and Surviving to Adulthood (Chalice Press, 2016)

Biblical, Theological, & Ethics Studies

  • Cone, James H., The Cross and the Lynching Tree (Orbis Books, 2011)
  • Felder, Cain Hope, Troubling Biblical Waters: Race, Class and Family (Orbis Books, 1989 – a study of the scriptures, with a re-examination of the place of blacks in the Bible, as well as mandates for justice
  • Myers, Ched, Marie Dennis, Joseph Nangle O.F.M., Cynthia Moe-Loebeda, & Stuart Taylor, Say to This Mountain: Mark’s Story of Discipleship (Orbis Books, 1996)
  • Rieger, Joerg, Globalization and Theology (Abingdon Press, 2010)
  • Thurman, Howard, Jesus and the Disinherited
  • West, Traci C., Disruptive Christian Ethics: When Racism and Women’s Lives Matter (Westminster John Knox Press, 2006) – focusing on the intersection of racism and women’s subjugation

General, Related to US History, Culture and Contemporary Reality

  • Alexander, Michelle, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (The New Press, 2012)
  • Blum, Edward J. & Paul Harvey, The Color of Christ:  the Sons of God and the Saga of Race in America (The University of North Carolina Press, 2012)
  • Goza, Joel Edward, America’s Unholy Ghosts: The Racist Roots of Our Faith and Politics (Cascade Books, 2019)
  • Haney Lopez, Ian, Dog WhistlePolitics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class  (Oxford University Press, 2014)
  • Harvey, Jennifer, Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children I a Racially Unjust America (Abingdon Press, 2017)
  • Lowen, James W., Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong (A Touchstone Book, Simon & Schuster, 1999)
  • Lowen, James W., Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong  (A Touchstone Book, Simon & Schuster, 1995)
  • Takaki, Ronald, A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America (Little, Brown and Company, 1993)

Personal Perspectives, Memoirs, Fiction, Poetry, Prayers, Movies

  • Angelou, Maya, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
  • Angelou, Maya, The Heart of a Woman
  • Baldwin, James, The Fire Next Time (Dell Publishing, 1963)
  • Bernard, Emily, Black Is the Body: Stories from My Grandmother’s Time, My Mother’s Time, and Mine (Alfred A. Knopf, 2019)
  • Douglass, Frederick, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave – written by Himself – 1845 (published by Barnes & Noble, 2002)
  • Hurston, Zora Neale (ed. Alice Walker), I Love Myself – When I A Laughing – and Then Again When I am Looking Mean and Impressive (The Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 1979)
  • Irving, Debby, Waking Up White and Finding Myself in the Story of Race (Elephant Room Press, 2014)
  • Jarrett-Schell, Peter, Seeing My Skin: (A Story of Wrestling with Whiteness) (Church Publishing Incorporated, 2019)
  • Johnson, James Weldon, God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse (Viking Press, 1927)
  • Kidd, Sue Monk, The Invention of Wings (Penguin Books, 2014)
  • King, Martin Luther, Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail
  • King, Martin Luther, Jr., A Gift of Love: Sermons from “Strength to Love” and Other Preachings (Beacon Press, 1981)
  • Wise, Tim, White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son (the Remix: Revised and Updated Edition) Soft Kull Press, an Imprint of Counterpoint, 2008, 2011.
  • Movie: Harriet  (about Harriet Tubman)  2019

Countering Racism and White Privilege/Power/Supremacy (& intersections of oppression)

  • Billings, David, Deep Denial: The Persistence of White Supremacy in United States History and Life (Crandall, Dostie & Douglass Books, Inc., 2016)
  • DeGruy, Dr. Joy, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing (Joy DeGruy Publications, 2017)
  • DeLeon-Hartshorn, Iris, Tobin Miller Sharer, & Stoltzfus, Regina Shands, Set Free: A Journey Toward Solidarity Against Racism (Herald Press, 2001)
  • Eberhardt, Jennifer L., PhD, Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do (Viking, 2019)
  • Frankenburg, Ruth, The Social Construction of Whiteness: white women, race matters (University of Minnesota Press, 1993)
  • Ivory, Luther D., Toward a Theology of Radical Involvement: The Theological Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Abingdon Press, 1997)
  • Robinson, Randall, The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks, (A Dutton Book, 2000)
  • Shearer, Jody Miller, Enter the River: Healing Steps from White Privilege toward Racial Reconciliation (Herald Press, 1994)
  • Stevenson, Bryan, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2014) 
  • Thandeka, Learning to Be White (Continuum, 2002)
  • Tochluk, Shelly, Witnessing Whiteness: The Need to Talk About Race and How to Do It (2nd edition) (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2010)
  • Villanueva, Edgar, Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2018)

Perspectives on Communication & Dealing with Cross-Racial, Cross-Cultural Settings in Faith Communities

  • Kondrath, William M., God’s Tapestry: Understanding and Celebrating Differences (Alban Institute, 2008)
  • McSpadden, Lucia Ann, Meeting God at the Boundaries: Cross-Cultural – Cross-Racial Appointments (General Board of Higher Education & Ministry, The United Methodist Church, 2003)
  • McSpadden, Lucia Ann, Meeting God at the Boundaries, A Manual for Church Leaders (General Board of Higher Education & Ministry, the United Methodist Church, 2003)

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