Contesting Post-Racialism: Conflicted Churches in the United States and South Africa

After the 2008 election and 2012 reelection of Barack Obama as US president and the 1994 election of Nelson Mandela as the first of several blacks to serve as South Africa's president, many within the two countries have declared race to be irrelevant. For contributors to this volume, the presumed demise of race may be premature. Given continued racial disparities in income, education, and employment, as well as in perceptions of problems and promise within the two countries, much healing remains unfinished. Nevertheless, despite persistently pronounced disparities between black and white realities, it has become more difficult to articulate racial issues. Some deem ""race"" an increasingly unnecessary identity in these more self-consciously ""post-racial"" times.

The volume engages post-racial ideas in both their limitations and promise. Contributors look specifically at the extent to which a church's contemporary response to race consciousness and post-racial consciousness enables it to give an accurate public account of race.

About the Author :
R. Drew Smith, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is professor of urban ministry at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and research fellow at University of South Africa. His books include From Every Mountainside: Black Churches and the Broad Terrain of Civil Rights.

William Ackah, London, United Kingdom, is lecturer in the Department of Geography and programme director for community development and development and globalisation at Birkbeck University of London. He is also co-convener of the Transatlantic Roundtable on Religion and Race.

Anthony G. Reddie, Birmingham, United Kingdom, is tutor in Christian theology and coordinator of community learning at Bristol Baptist College. He is editor of Black Theology: An International Journal.

Rothney S. Tshaka, Pretoria, South Africa, is professor of systematic theology and theological ethics and acting director for the School of Humanities at the University of South Africa. He is also co-convener of the Transatlantic Roundtable on Religion and Race.

Review :
Contesting Post-Racialism is a powerfully persuasive analysis of the ways that race still operates in the United States and South Africa. This book effectively dispels the notion that we now reside in a post-racial or post-apartheid society. The arguments represent perspectives that are theological and sociological, as well as ecclesial and communal. This book needs and deserves a wide readership."" - Curtiss Paul DeYoung, executive director of the Community Renewal Society and former professor of reconciliation studies, Bethel University

""In light of the continuing systemic misdirection and misinformation around the world about post-racialism, so-called, there is an urgent need for prophetic truth-telling in the United States, South Africa, and wherever peoples of African descent are found. With critical acumen and refreshing candor, the contributors to this volume serve to remind us that the near permanence of racism in its most subtle and incendiary forms requires the need for people of vision and faith to fight on."" - Dr. Alton B. Pollard, dean and professor of religion and culture, Howard University School of Divinity