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Recovering Racists (Dismantling White Supremacy and Reclaiming Our Humanity) Paperback – April 12, 2022

by McVicker (Author)

4.8 26 ratings

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"It is a rare thing for me to stand with a book, explicitly about race and equity, that is written by a white person. Why? Because it is a rare thing to encounter a white person who has followed the lead of people of color into their own transformation so deeply that I trust the message coming from their white body. Idelette McVicker has done the work."--Lisa Sharon Harper (from the foreword)

As a white Afrikaner woman growing up in South Africa during apartheid, Idelette McVicker was steeped in a community and a church that reinforced racism and shielded her from seeing her neighbors' oppression. But a series of circumstances led her to begin questioning everything she thought was true about her identity, her country, and her faith.

Recovering Racists shares McVicker's journey over thirty years and across three continents to shatter the lies of white supremacy embedded deep within her soul. She helps us realize that grappling with the legacy of white supremacy and recovering from racism is lifelong work that requires both inner transformation and societal change. It is for those of us who have hit rock bottom in the human story of race, says McVicker. We must acknowledge our internalized racism, repent of our complicity, and learn new ways of being human.

This book invites us on the long, slow journey of healing the past, making things right, changing old stories, and becoming human together. As we work for the liberation of everyone, we also find liberation for ourselves. Each chapter ends with discussion questions.

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We must acknowledge our internalized racism.

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From the Back Cover

"A beautiful, honest invitation to a better way of being human"

As a white Afrikaner woman growing up in South Africa during apartheid, Idelette McVicker was steeped in a community and a church that reinforced racism and shielded her from seeing her neighbors' oppression.

In Recovering Racists, McVicker shares her journey over thirty years and across three continents to shatter the lies of white supremacy embedded deep within her soul. She helps white Christians realize that grappling with the legacy of white supremacy is a lifelong work that requires both inner transformation and societal change.

"Rejecting white supremacy is work that we all need to do. It has humanized Idelette and relocated her in the human family as a daughter, sister, friend, and accomplice in the work of loving all God's children. I count it a privilege to have witnessed some of the steps along this precious way of love."
--Rev. René August, The Warehouse

"What a powerful book. Idelette is one of my greatest teachers, and I recommend her work with my whole heart."
--Sarah Bessey, editor of the New York Times bestseller A Rhythm of Prayer and author of Jesus Feminist

"A beautiful, honest invitation to a better way of being human in which we embrace each other fully--I hope you'll accept it."
--Kaitlin B. Curtice, author of Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God

"A heartbreakingly honest and gloriously transparent account of the other side of racism, the one most of us deny. I hope and pray that everyone everywhere will read this book."
--Danielle Strickland, communicator, advocate, and author of Better Together

"An absolute must-read for white people seeking to be recovering racists and anti-racists."
--Karen González, immigration advocate and author of The God Who Sees: Immigrants, the Bible, and the Journey to Belong

"McVicker's honest grappling with whiteness makes way for us all to lean in and learn from someone who has done the work to reclaim our humanity."
--Tiffany Bluhm, author of Prey Tell and cohost of the Why Tho podcast

About the Author

Idelette McVicker is the founder and president of SheLoves Media Society, an online forum for Christian women that includes SheLoves Magazine and the Dangerous Women membership community. She is a popular speaker and retreat leader internationally. McVicker wrote the SheLovesmanifesto, Let Us Be Women Who Love, which has been used by women's ministries around the world and in Sarah Bessey's book Jesus Feminist. After training as a journalist in South Africa, she lived in Taiwan, where she wrote for daily newspapers. McVicker moved to Canada in 1999 and lives in Surrey, British Columbia.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Brazos Press (April 12, 2022)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1587435438
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1587435430
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.5 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.6 x 8.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,302,932 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #4,182 in Christian Social Issues (Books)
- #5,899 in Christian Women's Issues
- #147,402 in Politics & Social Sciences (Books)

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4.8 26 ratings

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Lori Joanne

The Book I Needed--We Are So Interconnected

Reviewed in the United States on April 13, 2022

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I have been in search of a thing I didn’t know what to call or how to find it. I have been in knots. And here it is. It found me.

Author Idelette McVicker was born in South Africa during apartheid. This book, Recovering Racists is a story about her journey to recover from the inherited racism of her own people. She demonstrates how interconnected our liberation is to one another, from across the globe and how damaging racism and denial is to the soul of white folks and models the journey to reclaim our humanity as we own and acknowledge our internalized racism within.

This is a book I needed, one that models the journey itself and what it practically looks like beyond the theoretical. It is part poetic, part confession, and a guided spiritual journey with practical embodied wisdom from her own life and her teachers. She is firm and unapologetic in her truth telling and the need to have these basement meetings in caucus to heal together from the disease of white supremacy and not further harm Black, Indigenous, and People of Color with our white tears and our messy process. Yet, she is gentle, encouraging self-compassion and joy in the long marathon journey.

I read more than half of this book in one sitting, and I know without a doubt that this is a helpful companion to the journey. I feel more at ease than overwhelmed, because there is someone just ahead of me on this journey of racial sobriety and reclaiming our humanity and our interconnectedness with all people. She points the reader to learn from Black, Indigenous and People of Color first, this book is not a replacement; it is a companion to the marathon journey toward the Beloved Community. I have been reading Black Women, Womanist Theologians, and listening to diverse voices, and have found it so valuable. What is unique about this book is it recognizes that white folks need a basement meeting and to be able to integrate what we are learning and unlearning. We need to have a space where we can process together and ask each other questions without bleeding onto or harming People of Color.

Everything Idelette writes and says is deliberate, and thoughtful. She does not ask the reader to do anything she has already been actively putting into practice. It has been profoundly helpful, and a gift to me in this season of my life. I highly recommend this and encourage everyone I know to read this and work through this in recovery meetings--not just book clubs, but spaces where we are willing to be brutally honest about the disease of racism and white supremacy. Denial will not do. We must admit it rather than deny our proximity to it. And we keep on learning. This book is so helpful. Get a journal and work through the reflection questions at the end of every chapter. Do the activities and practices she recommends, and settle in for the long haul, because it's not a one and done.

“Now as we enter into this story and the continued work, may our bodies and our presence in this world become filled with love and liberation. May we recover from our racism.” Idelette McVicker

2 people found this helpful

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Nicole Walters

A Faithful Guide for Our Journeys

Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2022

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Idelette McVicker is one of those people who, when you meet them, you know they speak a hard-earned truth. They just exude wisdom and you feel like they can see something deep in your soul. I "met" Idelette seven years ago through the community she founded, SheLoves. I met her in person at the 2016 festival of Faith and Writing and found her to be the person in real life that she exudes on the page. Throughout my time as an editor and regular contributor at SheLoves Magazine, I learned so much from Idelette about the deep work of transformation that God calls us to be a part of. She leads with an empowering and pastoral spirit that is rare. She has walked the walk of liberation as a white South African in ways that most others have not and is a wise guide for our journey. Every white Christian should read this book.

2 people found this helpful

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AngelaE

I’m a Recovering Racist

Reviewed in the United States on April 13, 2022

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This is such an important book at this time in history. Idelette shared her story if growing up in apartheid South Africa, knowing no other life, knowing no other way. She went on a journey of learning and un-learning and she has shared the findings of her journey in this beautifully written book. May we all join her in learning from the past and creating a more inclusive, loving future.

One person found this helpful

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TMPlym

An invitation for white people to an anti-racist journey

Reviewed in the United States on April 13, 2022

Congrats to Idelette McVicker on her excellent book, Recovering Racists. As a white person, she says this definitely isn’t the first book on racism you should read and quotes from several Black, Indigenous and People of Colour throughout, but it’s specifically for white people who want to dismantle white supremacy and reclaim our humanity.

This is a thoughtful journey for any white person who perhaps doesn’t identify as ‘a racist’ but at the same time recognises that white supremacy is a problem that they must grapple with, no matter what their background. She grew up in Apartheid South Africa, now lives in Canada and is very linked with America, so her global approach to racism is very helpful. She avoids modelling or advocating the kind of performative self-flagellation that ends up making a victim of white people. Instead, she deals gently with the associated shame and takes us through the inner work necessary to live an anti-racist life that values justice and true mutuality.

It offers a light Christian persective, but I’d say it’s suitable for all faiths and none. One of the most helpful things was her inclusion of @Nicole Joshua’s distinction between ‘communities of permission’ (the oppressed communities who approach the biblical text and find space for their lament and cry for justice) and ‘communities of requirement’ (the privileged communities who are required to ‘act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with their God’).

The end result is a book that invites white people to a greater liberation and a greater humanity. A superb, sensitively-written resource to equip white people in their journey to be anti-racist. Highly recommended.

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Music

An important read for the recovering racist

Reviewed in Canada on April 12, 2022

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"To dismember is to tear apart. When we re-member, we are putting things back together: fragments, stories, memories, communities. We join the Spirit's work of knitting us together. The fragments that have been scattered and the pieces of our humanity that have been sacrificed on altars of dehumanization and greed are slowly returned to us."

Idelette McVicker's new book is a beautiful act of re-membering, and a clarion call for a thorough and continual examination of our motives, beliefs, and endorsements when it comes to issues of racial justice. Sharing so much of her own story with humility and grace, she invites her reader to companion with her in emptying themselves of their assumptions and privileges, while taking up the hard and holy work of restitution, reclamation, and imagining a better way forward for all of God's children. She has an inspired way of making space for others within her own telling- giving voice to her own story while graciously allowing others to speak into the narrative and share from the wisdom of their own stories.

The twenty "stations" she provides are a very helpful and practical pathway for searching our hearts on a continuing basis. As a recovering racist, I will return to these stations again and again as a valuable tool for correction and healing. Many of these stations will also be useful as I contemplate my recovery from other "-isms" that have had a foothold in my cultural and spiritual formation.

This book is well worth the read, and I cherish the perspective it has given me, as a white woman, on the systems of our world and how I am to begin to challenge them in a redemptive way.

2 people found this helpful

Jenny Cornfield

This is a book for white people. And for anyone who is white, it is a must read.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 13, 2022

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This is such an incredibly important book.
It is a book for white people.
And for anyone who is white, it is a must read.

For anyone who believes from the depths of their heart that Black Lives Matter, this book is an invitation to live honestly, wholeheartedly & with integrity the words that we speak, the placards that we have held & the hashtags that we write on the platforms where we share something of our stories.

It is a book that confronts history as well as the present.

It asks us to get real about the white supremacy & privilege our white bodies have benefitted from & it invites us to walk away from ‘whiteness’.

It is, as Idelette writes, “…for those of us who have hit rock bottom in the human story of race. We’ve come to the end of whiteness. We want to be honest about our place in the human story and heal from internalised racism. We want to be anti-racist.” And we are ready to do the inner, transformatory work that this will involve…

Quoting the salutary words of Rev Kelly Brown Douglas that state: “The only thing white people can ever be are recovering racists”, Idelette shares with the reader her own story of recovery & her journey away from ‘whiteness’ as a white, Afrikaner woman who grew up in South Africa during apartheid.

This is a challenging read.
It is also a beautiful, honest & life- giving one.
It is a story of liberation and Idelette is a trustworthy, gentle guide.
She helps us realise that grappling with the legacy of white supremacy and recovering from racism is lifelong work that requires both inner transformation and societal change. As we work for the freedom for everyone, we also find freedom for ourselves.

And with regards to freedom, most poignantly for me, was the way in which Idelette prophetically speaks of our ‘…need of a repentance revolution. Not public. Not a show. But in the privacy of our kitchens, our bedrooms, our bathrooms. In the quiet prayers of repentance at sites of horror in human history. A repentance revolution…’ that ‘… can take place in the consistent, intentional, thoughtful decisions to move toward justice and a new way of being human together.’

This book is all about the creation of a different world.

‘Whiteness is not where our human story started, and it is not where it will end. We can be part of creating a different world. But to get there, we have work to do now.’

This book helps us to begin this work and gives us a practical framework to commit humbly to the long walk of love and liberation that it will involve. A walk of recovery from racism. I could not recommend it more highly.

(90% of the profits from the book will go to different organisations within Canada, South Africa & the US, who work towards reparations for the injustices of historical racism.)

Amazon Customer

A practical invitation to liberation

Reviewed in Canada on May 10, 2022

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This book is an important guidebook to our individual responsibilities at this time, especially for those of us who are white and wrestling with our roles in the dreadful damage of racism and white supremacy. Idelette shares her own journey out of apartheid into a bigger, more expansive way of being in the world and invites the reader along in practical ways in our own individual way. She is open, honest and truthful, sometimes painfully so. She is also wise, loving, and encouraging. This is a book to be marked up, to be re-read and to be shared.

Two important things make this book unique. First, Idelette writes from a global perspective and specifically looks at how white supremacey has infected South Africa, Canada and the US. Second, Idelette is giving away 90% of the profits from this book to anti-racism organizations in the above three counties.

I can't say enough good things about this book. If you are even a bit intrigued, buy it. There will be something in there for you.

Penney Hartsen

Transformative

Reviewed in Canada on February 28, 2023

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This author takes us through her lived experiences and shows how personal and social transformation are interrelated. She also weaves in her Christian perspective, which supports the transformative process. This book is an important contribution to the work of moving past racism at this time of transition in our human family.

Court's Knees

Must read for white folks everywhere

Reviewed in Canada on May 31, 2022

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This book is such a powerful read. Idelette’s story moved me and encouraged me to look at the racism that has been rooted within. Her experience helps white folks reflect and begin or continue on their their lifelong work of recovering from racism. Idelette is always clear about listening and centering BIPOC voices. Reading through the years of work she has done and continues to do, she has gives hope for a better world. This is a must read fir white folks everywhere.

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