When people think about our congregation’s racial justice programming, one concern sometimes raised is that we do a lot of thinking and talking about racism, but not a lot of doing anything proactive and productive to change things.  It can certainly be argued that, for people who have been raised to think of themselves as white, thinking and talking is doing something, and something quite important.  People who have been raised white have been acculturated in the dominant world view so deeply that we often don’t recognize that the way we see the world is not the way the world is but, instead, one of the ways the world is … and one which intentionally and systematically oppresses people who are not seen as white.  Coming to see this truth is hard work for many of us, and even when we’ve done so there is always more unlearning to do.  Many racial justice advocates of all races assert that this unlearning is one of the most important people who think of themselves as white can do.  [Tim Wise’s book Dear White America: letter to a new minorityand Debbie Irving’s Waking Up White, And Finding Myself in the Story of Race are two great resources.  Both are available in our Undoing Racism Library.]