Review and Response to “Dear White Peacemakers”

This is a great book!

Osheta Moore writes in a style that feels like she’s invited you into her living room and you are sitting down and sharing food and a drink with her.

The book is addressed to White People and is full of encouragement, as well as some hard truths. There’s lots of learning that happens, but also plenty of compassion. And that’s what makes this anti-racism book especially unique — the compassion that flows through it. It stems from Moore’s faith — something that she openly talks about through out the book. It felt like a mix of Henri Nouwen, Maya Angelou, Richard Rohr, and Rachel Held Evans all in one.

The premise of Moore’s book is that the work of engaging in anti-racism is fused with peacemaking — and that makes her approach different and a challenge all at the same time. A challenge in that peacemaking in any regard is often unpopular. She has been influenced by several nonviolent peace activists in history — MLK, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, and Howard Thurman. The idea being nonviolent, not nonresistant.

One of the reasons I love Moore’s book is her focus on Shalom.

“I’ve spent the last decade calling in peacemakers to view their peacemaking in light of the Hebraic concept of shalom. I define it as God’s dream for the world…