Confessions of a Recovering Racist: What White People Must Do to Overcome Racism in America

Moving beyond binary definitions of racism, Rev. Lou Snead’s book addresses the subtle unconscious racial biases and privileges that continue to contribute to the racial inequities and injustices that exist in America today.

Using a confessional approach to overcoming the residual effects of individual and institutional racism, the challenge presented is to encourage white people to accept the responsibility for dismantling the racial biases that negatively impact people of color in our nation. The racism recovery process outlined begins with acknowledging the varying ways that unconscious and embedded biases and privileges continually show up in our personal relationships and public policies.

The focus of this book is on the challenges many whites face in freeing ourselves from the ideology of white superiority and the benefits of white institutional power. The author provides practical tools and resources designed to put all of us on a constructive pathway to becoming anti-racists.

For those who consider racism to be America’s original sin, the recovery model offered here will be personally challenging, yet the best hope America has for achieving racial equity and justice.

Rev. Lou Snead is a longtime social activist and racial justice advocate who lives in Georgetown, Texas. As a native of Florida, Lou was indoctrinated in his childhood by the White racist ideas that were prevalent during the 1950s and 60s. While in college he began a racial awareness transformation process that challenged his racial biases and White privileges. From his experience serving as the pastor of Presbyterian churches in Virginia, Dallas, Houston, and Austin he discovered that White racial biases are endemic in America even among otherwise moral people. Drawing up his work in community organizing and local social justice and racial reconciliation initiatives in Texas, Lou has developed a racial bias recovery process for Whites that begins with acknowledging our embedded but often unconscious inherited racism.