Time for a new narrative on race? - Together For The Common Good

Racial justice and the Common Good

There are many different ideas on how racial justice and structural change will be achieved. Not all of them can be regarded as ‘Common Good’.

The ‘white fragility’ approach is heavily promoted by the big corporates, and even by the Churches. But many leading Black thinkers reject race-reductionism, arguing that it will fail to deliver, that it will drive further division and worse, that it is in itself a new form of racism. Meanwhile, those engaging in iconoclasm and performative gesture politics may be inadvertently maintaining the power dynamics that exploit and divide.

A Common Good approach requires a cross-racial, cross-class solidarity to resist the forces that dehumanise. It will involve constructive steps to address structural injustice, but above all it is about treating each other with grace and love. The only way to achieve genuine change is through the obligations of love which are inseparable from relationships and from God, the source of love.

Watch the British conversation in the video below, or for an American perspective, watch the video discussion at the bottom of the page.