The Blackness of Black: Key Concepts in Critical Discourse

Abstract

the outright rejection of suggestions of racism of the political right. His concern is with the instruments used to address racial inequalities. And although his solution is to promote Christianity in well-contextualised ways, he regards this as relevant beyond the missiological community, as it is particularly secular development initiatives or scholars that are prone to (dis)miss non-secular orientations among the societies in which they seek transformation. Harries’ concern to undermine Western superiority by critiquing the way anti-racism functions displays an unlikely but nonetheless intriguing overlap with decolonial theory. His perspective on the defects of contemporary anti-racism shows similarities e.g. with Jennings’ views on colonialism and the effects thereof. Colonialism, writes Jennings, could be regarded as showing some kind of “cultural intimacy and joining, but this is surely the kind of joining that is assimilationist and that created what Walter Mignolo, following the insights of Frantz Fanon, termed the ‘colonial wound’.” While sharing the critique of the assimilationist West as voiced by the protagonists of decolonial thought, Harries argues for an alternative to the blanket dismissal of a Christianity which some experience (d) as oppressive and Euro-centric. Insofar as contemporary scholarship, along with other sought-after aspects of Western civilisation have roots in Christianity, Harries makes a case for an indigenously-owned appropriation of biblical faith and a Western contribution to that on a humble, vulnerable basis. The book, having an explicitly Western readership in mind, may at first cause some bewilderment to those who thought that they had finally got a grip on the why’s and how’s of antiracism, expressed through commitments to social justice, holistic ministry or the deconstruction of whiteness. But if readers can muster the courage to hear Harries out, his contribution promises a firmer and more just foundation on which to build in cross-cultural engagement with respect to Africa both inside and outside of the church.