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Unlearning White Supremacy: A Spirituality for Racial Liberation
"For more than twenty years, Alex Mikulich has lived Christian discipleship in a praxis of active, practical solidarity with African American children, women, and men in opposition to white racist supremacy. Drawing on his experience as a parent, lay minister, theologian, and scholar, and taking inspiration from Thomas Merton’s Seeds of Destruction, Mikulich interrogates disordered historical, social, cultural, and ecclesial contexts that promote and sustain white supremacy. Moreover, in this book, he invites White people of faith to take up concrete practices that counter white supremacy and encourages them to live out and out of a new consciousness and spirituality as members of the Body of Christ in active solidarity with all marginalized peoples." --Shawn Copeland, Professor Emerita of Theology, Boston College
“In this timely and powerful book, Alex Mikulich calls his fellow white Christians to name and dismantle the idolatry of white supremacy that informs so much of our life, thinking, and action in American society and the church. Weaving together personal experiences with wisdom from Black Christian and secular sources, Mikulich is unflinching in his challenge that white people of faith have a responsibility to work for racial justice because, as his fellow white Catholic Thomas Merton presciently declared decades before, racism is a white problem. This book shows how the work of antiracism requires an investment of the whole self, which includes one’s spirituality and faith commitments. Unlearning White Supremacy offers resources and tools to support those white Christians seeking a holistic approach to decolonizing their imaginations and outlook, while deepening their commitment to the work of racial justice in the church and world.”— Daniel P. Horan, OFM, Professor of Philosophy, Religious Studies and Theology at Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame and author of A White Catholic’s Guide to Racism and Privilege.
"Unlearning White Supremacy is what White Christians need right now to deepen our spiritual investment in addressing racism's violence. Mikulich places our fingers in the colonial wounds of white supremacy, and with searing analysis interrogates the white ecosystems and patterns of self-perceived innocence that remain. This richly textured gathering of lament and transformative practices is hard to put down and will be difficult to ignore." -Jeannine Hill Fletcher, author, The Sin of White Supremacy
Drawing on the writings of James Baldwin, W. E. B. DuBois, M. Shawn Copeland, and others, the author weaves together historical, theological, ethical, and sociological analysis to understand the origins and evolution of anti-Black white supremacy and to suggest ways in which white Christians in particular can work to overcome it in themselves and in their institutions.
Alex Mikulich, a Roman Catholic theologian and social ethicist, devotes his scholarship and activism to addressing white privilege and racism in the Catholic Church and in society. He is co-author of The Scandal of White Complicity in U.S. Hyper-Incarceration (2013), and he co-edited Interrupting White Privilege: Catholic Theologians Break the Silence (Orbis, 2007), which won the 2008 Theological Book of the Year award from the College Theology Society.
“In this timely and powerful book, Alex Mikulich calls his fellow white Christians to name and dismantle the idolatry of white supremacy that informs so much of our life, thinking, and action in American society and the church. Weaving together personal experiences with wisdom from Black Christian and secular sources, Mikulich is unflinching in his challenge that white people of faith have a responsibility to work for racial justice because, as his fellow white Catholic Thomas Merton presciently declared decades before, racism is a white problem. This book shows how the work of antiracism requires an investment of the whole self, which includes one’s spirituality and faith commitments. Unlearning White Supremacy offers resources and tools to support those white Christians seeking a holistic approach to decolonizing their imaginations and outlook, while deepening their commitment to the work of racial justice in the church and world.”— Daniel P. Horan, OFM, Professor of Philosophy, Religious Studies and Theology at Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame and author of A White Catholic’s Guide to Racism and Privilege.
"Unlearning White Supremacy is what White Christians need right now to deepen our spiritual investment in addressing racism's violence. Mikulich places our fingers in the colonial wounds of white supremacy, and with searing analysis interrogates the white ecosystems and patterns of self-perceived innocence that remain. This richly textured gathering of lament and transformative practices is hard to put down and will be difficult to ignore." -Jeannine Hill Fletcher, author, The Sin of White Supremacy
Drawing on the writings of James Baldwin, W. E. B. DuBois, M. Shawn Copeland, and others, the author weaves together historical, theological, ethical, and sociological analysis to understand the origins and evolution of anti-Black white supremacy and to suggest ways in which white Christians in particular can work to overcome it in themselves and in their institutions.
Alex Mikulich, a Roman Catholic theologian and social ethicist, devotes his scholarship and activism to addressing white privilege and racism in the Catholic Church and in society. He is co-author of The Scandal of White Complicity in U.S. Hyper-Incarceration (2013), and he co-edited Interrupting White Privilege: Catholic Theologians Break the Silence (Orbis, 2007), which won the 2008 Theological Book of the Year award from the College Theology Society.
272 pages, Paperback
Published June 15, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 5, 2024
Writing from a Roman Catholic religious and theological perspective, the author outlines a theological and spiritual approach to antiracism for white people. He offers a critical assessment of the history of racism and its continued impact on everyday life. He describes the white "habitus" ( way of living and being) that resists coming to terms with the ongoing impact of white supremacy in U.S. culture. Drawing on writings about colonialism he identifies a mindset that must change. He is clear that deconstructing racism in all its forms will cost white people in the US if true equality is to be achieved. He reviews various approaches to Reparations and concludes by linking the efforts to address climate change to the struggles to over come racism.
While there is much that is good in this book and thought-provoking, he focuses only on anti-black racism, which limits its application to other marginalized and oppressed groups in the U.S. Positively, he brings in the work and thought of many Catholic theologians and ethicists which adds to the richness of the text. In particular, he mentions "Letters to White Liberals" of Thomas Merton as a document that shaped and guided his thinking.
While there is much that is good in this book and thought-provoking, he focuses only on anti-black racism, which limits its application to other marginalized and oppressed groups in the U.S. Positively, he brings in the work and thought of many Catholic theologians and ethicists which adds to the richness of the text. In particular, he mentions "Letters to White Liberals" of Thomas Merton as a document that shaped and guided his thinking.
August 18, 2025
Read for the summer 2025 ICS course on degrowth.
What I like about Mikulich's text is how it takes the conversation around liberation theology, degrowth, and other such movements and extends it to Black liberation in the United States. It is an extension of Laudato Sí, which by its nature was more globally focused; Mikulich makes the case that repairing our relationship to nature and rebuilding society needs to mean repairing and decolonizing our relationship to each other.
This is definitely not a first book to read on the topic, as it builds on so much of the theory while quickly summarizing it from an academic perspective. Even after an entire term of reading on this, it was difficult to piece the argument together. I am also not wholly convinced by the underlying link between these two topics -- I think it makes a strong text on Black liberation (especially in a U.S. context) and on the degrowth movement, but when it tries to mash them together it feels at times oversimplified and ham-fisted. But still an important addition to the conversation.
What I like about Mikulich's text is how it takes the conversation around liberation theology, degrowth, and other such movements and extends it to Black liberation in the United States. It is an extension of Laudato Sí, which by its nature was more globally focused; Mikulich makes the case that repairing our relationship to nature and rebuilding society needs to mean repairing and decolonizing our relationship to each other.
This is definitely not a first book to read on the topic, as it builds on so much of the theory while quickly summarizing it from an academic perspective. Even after an entire term of reading on this, it was difficult to piece the argument together. I am also not wholly convinced by the underlying link between these two topics -- I think it makes a strong text on Black liberation (especially in a U.S. context) and on the degrowth movement, but when it tries to mash them together it feels at times oversimplified and ham-fisted. But still an important addition to the conversation.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews