The Color of Compromise by Jemar Tisby
(Format used for this read: Print–hardback)
This is my second time thru this extremely informative, extremely powerful and hugely impactful book.
I read it the first time last summer.
I learned and was convicted by so much in my first journey thru these pages…and the same thing happened again this time.
But this second experience was a little different.
I have a WHOLE lot to say so before I get all my ramblings going, so let me give yall the book’s official summary:
“There can be no justice without truth.
In ‘The Color of Compromise’ Jemar Tisby takes readers back to the roots of sustained racism and injustice in the American church. Filled with powerful stories and examples of American Christianity’s racist past, Tisby’s historical narrative highlights the obvious ways people of faith have actively worked against racial justice, as well as the complicit silence of racial moderates. Identifying the cultural and institutional tables that must be flipped to bring about progress, Tisby provides an in depth diagnosis for a racially divided American church and suggests ways to foster a more equitable and inclusive environment among Gods people.”
Last year, I read this on my own….usually in the morning, outside on my back porch.
I reflected on my own, processed on my own, prayed on my own.
This year, I read thru these pages in pretty much the same way, as you can see in my pic up there.
Usually in the morning, outside on my back porch, with my coffee, pens and sparkly notebook at the ready….and trying to get thru just ONE WHOLE CHAPTER without my youngest offspring coming outside to ask for something, talk to me, or just distract me. 😑
(mamas of littles: if you think when your kids get older they will *finally* give you some peace….don’t keep your fingers crossed too tightly on that one…my boys are just turned 8 and almost 14…and they STILL haven’t learned how to do that well 😁)
But this time, as I read thru the book I got to process in community…..TWO groups of community actually.
One is a local group of 4 ladies that I have been meeting with monthly since the beginning of the year….each month we read a book, listen to a podcast series, or watch a documentary to help us continue to learn and grow in our racial awakening journey. Our journey together started with the book “Be The Bridge” by Latasha Morrison…and while we have lost a few that started with us, the four of us have diligently committed to continuing in our growth together…..we did NOT want to get complacent in our learning and dismantling. (*we meet tonight to discuss*)
The second community is an online Facebook group where the AUTHOR HIMSELF has been a guide and participant. The group is composed of 2,000+ members from all over the world. Each week we were assigned chapters to read, discussion questions to answer, reflection statements to journal about, and live video chats to watch that Jemar did with other people in the Christian activist realm. (my two fave videos: the video Jemar did with Latasha Morrison AND the video he did with my friend Kristina….both tremendous women of God that I have learned SO MANY life changing things from the past few years ❤. I don’t ever think I can put into words how grateful and thankful I am for both of them and the tireless work they continue to do!)
I was not NEARLY as active in the FB group as I wanted to be…I kept getting behind in my assignments😬.. .but I did make sure I took the time to answer every single question and journal every single reflection in my sparkly notebook. I also made sure I watched/listened to every single video that was posted.
I did not speak up on the page much, but I did read thru many comments on discussion threads….and man, I learned SO SO MUCH. Being able to hear other people’s perspectives and processing….ESPECIALLLY people of color…was extremely eye opening for me and gave me many challenges to unpack regarding my own whitewashed view on history and faith interpretations.
I know I’ve told yall before in previous book reviews that I have been working on dismantling my whiteness in a bunch of ways the past few years….you have seen a plethora of the books that have helped me and educated me in this journey so far.
Well… part of dismantling my whiteness also translates to decolonizing and deWesternizing my Christian faith as well. I realized my version of Christianity is also painted with a big ol’ brush of whiteness that I need to peel on back.
And let me tell yall….if you are a Christian in America (ESPECIALLY a white one)….we need to know the history of our faith in this country.
We need to understand how Scripture and theology has been twisted and flipped and turned upside down to form our belief systems….and how historically, our American church as a whole has not only been silently complicit with racism, but also an active participant.
When I tell yall that Jemar will inform you on all this and then some….and the truth will make your brain spin and your heart hurt….I MEAN IT.
You will learn CORRECT history….you will learn from voices that have been oppressed and marginalized…NOT from the voices of colonizers who came to dominate and overpower.
What you read will challenge everything you know about your Christian world view….in a disorienting and NECESSARY way.
Jemar starts with colonial times in this country and educates you all the way thru present day (or at least until 2019 when the book was published).
Soong-Chan Rah is quoted saying Jemar writes about the history of race In the American church in our country “with the incision of a prophet, the rigor of a professor, and the heart of a pastor”.
I wholeheartedly agree on that description. This book is scholarly (LOOTS of resources listed in the back) but also written in a way that is easy to understand. He speaks directly and bluntly but also with the prominent love of Jesus at the forefront of all he says.
I was texting with a girl in my book group just yesterday as she was finishing the book. She said to me “This book has me so upset.”
My response was “Yes, these are hard truths to realize.”
And really it should make us upset….we need to lament about so much.
It can be painful to hear difficult truths….
BUT YALL WE HAVE TO HEAR THEM.
Because repair has to be made for all the trauma, dehumanization, and oppression that has been caused by the American church.
And CHANGE has GOT to come….because it KEEPS ON HAPPENING.
Yall know I always like to share quotes from books like this….and I could probably fill pages and pages with quotes I want yall to read….
I will share some of Jemar’s words with you, but I am not kidding when I say there is SO MUCH UNDERLINED (and even STARRED) on my pages that to narrow it down to just a few to share is SUPER DUPER hard.
I want to type them all for you….
But honestly…Yall really need to just get this book so you can have ALLLLLL of his wisdom and teachings in your own hands, brains and hearts.
Don’t be mad…
Of COURSE I will share SOME….
Here is some Jemar wisdom for you to chew on and digest:
“Christianity in America has been tied to the fallacy of white supremacy for hundreds of years. European colonists brought with them ideas of white superiority and paternalism toward darker skinned people…..The church needs the Carpenter from Nazareth to deconstruct the house that racism built and remake it into a house for all nations.”
“While white soliders and political leaders were declaring their inalienable right to independence, they were also enslaving countless women, men and children of African descent. And the American church participated in and defended the contradiction between freedom and slavery embedded in the constitution of its young nation.”
“Fresh from the Revolutionary War, [the United States] could have adopted the noble ideals written in the Declaration of Independence. It could have crafted a truly inclusive Constitution. Instead, white supremacy became more defined as the nation and the church solidified their identities…the Constitution had the rights of wealthy, white men in mind while other groups like indigenious peoples, women, and enslaved blacks held a lesser status.”
“Rather than defending the dignity of black people, American Christians at this time chose to turn a blind eye to the separation of families, the scarring of bodies, the starvation of stomachs, and the generational trauma of slavery.”
“Many white Christians failed to unequivolcally condemn lynching and other acts of racial terror. Doing so poisoned the American legal system and made Christian churches complicit in racism for generations. While some Christians spoke out and denounced these lynchings, the majority of the American church was avoidance, turning a blind eye to the practice.”
“Precious few Christians publicly aligned themselves with the struggle for black freedom in the 1950s and 1960s….the American church responded to much of the civil rights movement with passivity, indifference, or even outright opposition.”
“One of the most famous images of Jesus ever pomulgated is called ‘Head of Christ’ by Warner Sallman…..This picture, and hundreds of others like it, subtly reinforced the idea that Jesus Christ was a European looking white man, and many added to the assumption that he was a free-market, capitalist supporting American as well…..Warner Sallman’s famous but contrived image of Jesus served to reinforce among Christians the status quo of the American racial hierarchy.”
“Since the late 1960s, the American church’s complicity in racism has been less obvious, but it has not required as much effort to maintain. Nowadays, all the American church needs to do in terms of compromise is cooperate with already established and racially unequal social systems.”
“One of the challenges we face in discussions of racism today is that the conversation about race has shifted since the civil rights era….Racialization functions differently from straightforward racism…discrimination in a racialized society is increasingly covert, embedded in the normal operations of institutions, and it avoids direct terminology, making it invisible to most white people…often leads them to unknowingly compromise with racism.”
“Black lives matter served as a rallying cry for protests, but it also acted as an assertion of the image of God in black people. In Christian anthropology, saying that black lives matter insists that all people, including those who have darker skin, have been made in the image and likeness of God. Black lives matter does not mean ONLY black lives matter; it means black lives matter too. Given the racist patterns of devaluing black lives in America’s past, it is not obvious to many black people that everyone values black life.”
“John Hope Franklin said ‘I think knowing one’s history leads one to act in a more enlightened fashion….I cannot imagine how knowing one’s history would not urge one to become an activist.’ “
“Christian complicity with racism in the twenty first century looks different than complicity with racism in the past. It looks like Christians responding to black lives matter with the phrase all lives matter. It looks like Christians consistently supporting a president whose racism has been on display for decades. It looks like Christians telling black people and their allies that their attempts to bring up racial concerns are ‘divisive’ . It looks like conversations on race that focus on individual relationships and are unwilling to discuss systemic solutions. Perhaps Christian complicity in racism has not changed much after all. Although the characters and the specifics are new, many of the same rationalizations for racism remain.”
“Friendships and conversations are necessary, but they are not sufficient to change the racial status quo. Christians must also alter how impersonal systems operate so that they might create and extend racial equality.”
“Ultimately you cannot read your way, listen your way, or watch your way into skillful advocacy. At some point you must act. Go forth not in fear but in faith that even your mistakes will increase your capacity to disrupt racism.”
(yes that is my version of “narrowing it down” 😄)
American Christ followers: READ THIS BOOK, yall.
Also there is a 12 part video study that goes along with the book that is FREE on Amazon Prime….highly recommend watching as you read as I feel it helped me to really absorb the information.
***Be sure to check out Jemar’s two podcasts “Pass The Mic” with Tyler Burns, and “Footnotes with Jemar Tisby”. I have listened regularly for awhiel now….and I ALWAYS learn SO MUCH with every episode I hear.