Learning to be White: Money, Race and God in America

Rating:
Summary: a novel thesis
Review: I found this book very readable and intellectually stimulating. The author puts forth a novel and plausible thesis regarding the impact of a racist society on the majority race. A great deal has been written about the effects racism has on the minority, but this writer examines its interplay with the psychology of the racist majority. She puts forth interesting and compelling ideas about the psychic danger, for white children, should they identify with the devalued minority. I found her study thought-provoking and engaging.

Rating:
Summary: Thandeka primes the pump...
Review: The pump that I see Thankdeka priming is one of dialogue. I read this book for a paper I wrote for one of my seminary classes. It was/is a provocative read. I do feel however that she could have elaborated more, but I do not see most people reading the dozens of books that she could have produced at one sitting.

Thandeka does a wonderful job of weaving together allusions and stories to produce a work that is a quality resource. I think it is a beautiful start to facing our extremities interculturally. In my limited experience I have seen cultures that overlap and work well together, so when broad sweeping generalizations are required to convey I think it becomes time to pay a little more attention to the underdogs in the world. Maybe we can all learn a little humility and acceptance from a book like Thandeka's.

Rating:
Summary: Barely Disguised Marxist Nonesense
Review: The thesis. The problem that the majority of Americans face is that working white Americans (i.e. the proletariat) have not shaken their false consciousness, made common cause with blacks of their class to throw off the white capitalist oppressors. If they do, then we can achieve a worker's paradise. Oh, and parents that don't see it this way are engaging in child abuse (and presumably need re-education).

It is too bad that trees were sacrificed for such intellectually incoherent, obviously wrong, marxist nonsense.