Doing Nothing Is No Longer an Option: One Woman’s Journey into Everyday Antiracism

Potter, cohost of the web series The Next Question, details in this searching debut her efforts to grapple with her whiteness. She describes how a college trip studying race’s impact in the American South sparked her vocal commitment to anti-racism, and she relates her imperfect attempts to live up to that ideal. Recounting the resistance she received from white participants during diversity trainings she ran at her church, Potter encourages white people to acknowledge their racial privilege. She explores what racial justice might look like in the Christian church, recalling how she once hoped to “add Black and Brown Jesus to the teachings of White Jesus” but came to view “White Jesus” as bound up in exclusivity and suggests that white Christians instead embrace “Jesus the Middle Eastern Jew.” The author tells how she explained the George Floyd protests to her young son and urges parents to take a proactive role disrupting racial and patriarchal social scripts. Potter’s candor about her stumbling attempts to live out her anti-racist ideals is refreshing, and Christian parents will appreciate the final chapters about how to raise their children to be anti-racists. The result is a sensible primer aimed at white Christians hoping to strengthen their commitment to anti-racism. (Oct.)