Silencing White Noise: Six Practices to Overcome Our Inaction on Race

★ Publishers Weekly starred review

"A superior volume on Christian antiracism."--Publishers Weekly

Racism is omnipresent in American life, both public and private. We are immersed in what prominent faith leader Willie Dwayne Francois III calls white noise--the racist speech, ideas, and policies that lull us into inaction on racial justice. White noise masks racial realities and prevents constructive responses to microaggressions, structural inequality, and overt interpersonal racism.

In this book, Francois calls people of all racial backgrounds to take up practices that overcome silence and inaction on race and that advance racial repair. Drawing from his anti-racism curriculum, the Public Love Organizing and Training (PLOT) Project, Francois encourages us to move from a "colorblind" stance of mythic innocence to one that takes an honest account of our national history and acknowledges our complicity in racism as a prelude to anti-racist interventions.

Weaving together personal narrative, theology, and history, this book invites us to engage 6 "rhythms of reparative intercession." These are six practices of anti-racism that aim to repair harm by speaking up and "acting up" on behalf of others. Silencing White Noise offers concrete ways to help people wrest free from the dangers of racism and to develop lifelong Christian anti-racist practices.

Willie Dwayne Francois III (DMin, Candler School of Theology) is senior pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church in Pleasantville, New Jersey, and president of the Black Church Center for Justice and Equality. He serves as assistant professor of liberation theology at New York Theological Seminary and directs a master's degree program at Sing Sing Correctional Facility. He created the Public Love Organizing and Training Project and has served in various organizations engaging racial justice issues, including the Atlantic City chapter of Black Lives Matter, the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, and the NJ Department of State's MLK Jr. Commission. Francois is an active speaker and has written for HuffPost, Sojourners, The Hill, the Christian Century, and Religion Dispatches.