Summary

Repenting of Whiteness: Inventing Whiteness. The author, writing as though speaking to his congregation, refers to whiteness as a social construct defined more by history, power, and status than by actual skin color. He discusses how white people, consciously and unconsciously, have a great deal at stake in maintaining the power of whiteness, so much so that he fears they will in general be unable or unwilling to hear what he has to say. He then describes his own encounters with whiteness, which he says was behind how he was treated at his first college. That treatment, he adds, was the direct result of fear triggered, in turn, by his publicly uttered prayer for God to defeat racism. “It is hard for you to give up this willful ignorance. It is a drug. It is privilege and addiction. Your whiteness is a...