Book Review: Undivided: The Quest for Racial Solidarity in an American Church
by Hahrie Han
In this book, Hahrie Han addresses racism—a topic that, while some white people may be tired of hearing about it, most Black people are tired of experiencing it in real life at almost every level of society. The characters presented are real people, with lives that come alive before your eyes—thus Han uses pseudonyms to protect the subjects from being trolled or otherwise harmed, a factor that indicates how disruptive their actions are to those who are offended by their efforts to make life better for our fellow humans. The quest of the Undivided initiative differed from corporate DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) training programs in several key ways—one of those key objectives was to actually help people see each other as fellow humans, instead of just checking lawyerly boxes by a company’s general counsel.
Han describes the visceral effects on relationships from confronting documented systemic racism, in both the persons chronicled and the pushback they encountered as they sought tangible remedies for it. Real people struggle to determine the appropriate way forward for them individually, even though there is clear right and wrong in front of them. The choices aren’t easy, and there’s a larger reason for that in the form of general societal norms. Much of the source of the problems with amplification of embedded fascist propaganda lies with billionaire funding of media outlets that purposefully cultivate hatred between groups of people. Evidence points to the profitability (for some) that results from fanning inter-cultural hate—and the resultant incentive to manipulate poor people to turn on their fellow humans for artificially constructed reasons.
As long as such profitability exists, persons engaged in genuine anti-racist efforts will have an uphill climb—although not an unattainable one, even as some find they’ve lost friends, jobs, status, and even spouses in the process. Although the people and events in this book are in the context of a specific branch of Christianity (i.e. Evangelicalism), the issues addressed span all of humanity regardless of religious or secular environment—underneath the sectarian orientation lies a foundation that is universally human. All church denominations are limited to some degree by restrictions placed on them by donors, whose funding is essential for infrastructure and programs, and who are often from the same class of the wealthy who profit the most from racist systems—this includes self-proclaimed progressive churches as well.
The successes of Undivided that Han documents are amazing, considering the headwinds they faced. Even so, everyone who has awareness of the racism that’s been embedded in society since the Colonial era has some means at their disposal within their area of influence to advance universal human dignity—and no area of influence is too small or too large to engage. The larger areas of influence will require that racist propaganda in the media (including the mainstream and fringe) be debunked both publicly and individually with solid logical and emotional counterpoints. Much of that progress will be attained to the degree that racist systems become unprofitable—let us help that business case proceed.