Carolyn L. Baker

A collection of essays challenging White Americans to work against racism. This collection of thirty-two essays by Carolyn L. Baker addresses White Americans about America’s complex issues with race. In the wake of nationwide Black Lives Matter protests against racial injustice and police brutality, many Americans are taking steps to educate themselves about racism in the United States. Baker asserts that implicit racial bias harms and debilitates the soul of the White community goes against its deepest moral and religious traditions and is theirs to dismantle for the sake of their own liberation. She argues that, instead of waiting on top-down changes, Americans should begin the work of repairing the racial divide in their own communities. With Dispatches, From Racial Divide to a Road of Repair, Baker seeks to challenge, inspire, and uplift readers who, like herself, want to create a bottom-up paradigm for building community to drive authentic social change.

Carolyn L. Baker grew up in Southern California during segregation and came of age in the counter-cultural climate of the 1960s. Many years later, when Baker was in her mid-sixties, she first learned of the murder of Emmett Till, sparking an investigation of her own position as a white woman in the midst of a world of racial trauma. An Unintentional Accomplice follows Baker’s awakening to the realities of her own white privilege, confronting white guilt, navigating aspects of white identity, and searching out ways to be an ally who both acknowledges her own position and seeks to provide active support for those who live with a different set of circumstances. We find Baker facing the painful reality that, no matter how unintentional, she plays a role within a system that continues to inflict racial harm. She comes to realize that, by not actively opposing discrimination, as a white person, she acts as an accomplice. An Unintentional Accomplice offers a non-judgmental personal narrative that invites readers to explore the complexities of race in America and how to navigate the guilt that can arise in the face of these realities. The book defines institutionalized discrimination, illustrates the distance between the American dream and American reality, calls for a radically inclusive feminism, and suggests relevant ways to change direction and take action to build a more humane nation.

We all want to live and love more fully, and yet the price of our desire is often steep. Journey to The Promised Land is not just a moving story about reconnection, forgiveness, radical ego-adjustment, and having one's heart broken open. It is a story of what is possible when we are willing to engage in the inner work of healing the parts of ourselves that obstruct our loving aliveness--what is possible if we allow the ego to be radically transformed as we remain willing to stay present with and surrender to what in front of us right now. At this extraordinary moment of despair on our planet--at a time when hearts and conversations have become so hardened and polarized, it is crucial that we never shut down and that we continually open ourselves to mystery and miracles.