Deconstructing Racism: A Path toward Lasting Change

Barbara Crain Major and Joseph Barndt bring ninety combined years of experience as community organizers, teachers, and anti-racism trainers in community and church settings to this book. In Deconstructing Racism, they propose the deconstruction of racism's roots within systems and institutions that have been created, both structurally and legally, to serve white people. The authors propose that the deconstruction of racism must take place through the reconstruction of these systems and institutions.

The authors seek to unmask the complexities of racism and the invisible patterns that keep it in place. There is no quick fix, but they believe racism can be deconstructed and undone. In order to do this, they identify and address race-based identity, history, and cultural issues rooted in current systems.

Three chapters specifically address societal systems and provide anti-racism strategies for community organizers. Three chapters address racism as rooted in systems in the church and challenge people of faith to seek racial healing through understanding, honest confession, true reconciliation, and reconstructed church institutions. A final chapter outlines a way forward to and through a new era of anti-racist reconstruction. This way forward includes a new anti-racist mission statement, a new model of decision-making power, and new processes for accountability.

Barbara Crain Major is a community organizer and trainer with over forty years of experience in local, national, and international community development efforts. This work includes assisting institutions in developing strategies to deinstitutionalize racism. She is a core anti-racism trainer for The People's Institute for Survival and Beyond. Major connects her local organizing to training in anti-racism with people who live in or work with struggling communities.

Joseph Barndt is a Lutheran pastor, community organizer, teacher, and writer in the field of race and racism. He has been an anti-racism organizer for over four decades. Barndt has written several articles and books on racism and race relations, including his two most recent books, Understanding and Dismantling Racism: The Twenty-First Century Challenge to White America and Becoming an Anti-Racist Church: Journeying toward Wholeness, both from Fortress Press.