Ibram X. Kendi’s Stamped from the Beginning is on sale on Kindle today for just $1.99.

I don’t normally post things like this - letting people know of sales - but this book in particular was very helpful in the reckoning with white supremacy as part and parcel of white American Christianity part of my “deconstruction journey.”

(Aside: “Deconstruction,” for former white evangelicals at least, often just means educating yourself out of white ignorance. Ignorance is only a shield for white people; for everyone else, it’s a liability.)

If you want to maintain some semblance of Christian belief or identity, this book could both challenge and affirm that choice. It will make you recognize the ways that early white settlers incorporated their racism into their theology and church practice, well before modern white evangelicalism came to be.

Throughout the book, which tracks the history of racist thought, Kendi takes time to point out when various people could inhabit both racist and anti-racist beliefs. This is helpful, especially when addressing attempts by evangelical historians to deflect from the racist aspects of white evangelical practice & belief by relying on individuals like Blanchard & Finney.

Pair this book with White Evangelical Racism from Anthea Butler & White Too Long by Robert P. Jones.

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