The shelf life of racism depends on whether we can be honest about it. Many Americans of faith, specifically white Christians, reject their complicity in racism and claim to be nonracists. However, nonracist is not a real ethical orientation. We are either racist or anti-racist; there is no neutral, passive third way. Ibram X. Kendi asserts, “The opposite of a ‘racist’ isn’t not racist. It is ‘antiracist.’ What’s the difference?…One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an antiracist. There is no in-between safe space of ‘not racist.’ The claim of ‘not racist’ neutrality is a mask for racism. By contrast, antiracists intentionally advocate for policies and practices that guarantee racial equity, driven by a conviction of inherent racial equality. People of faith and conscience either disrupt racism as anti-racist or uphold racism as racists. Anti-racists intentionally confront racism – institutional and individual – with racial equity and repair as a way of life.
From “Silencing White Noise: Six Practices to Overcome Our Inaction on Race” by Willie Dwayne Francois III – Brazos Press