Stopping racism with a smile?

In our "Reflections From the Classroom" series, seasoned teachers talk about their experiences walking with students and guiding their learning.

Last semester, I had students review Divided By Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America, by Michael Emerson and Christian Smith. For those unfamiliar with this book, the authors make two general claims:

• America is a racialized society. By “racialized,” Emerson and Smith mean that disparities of economic and educational opportunity, housing and shopping, health and entertainment, personal and family net worth, police and legal protections—all instances of structural inequality—are determined by physiology (along with determining it). The authors convincingly conclude that in our supposedly colorblind, post-racial America, “race matters profoundly.”
• White evangelical Protestants are unwitting proponents of racialization. While noting the admirable efforts of some white evangelical Christians to foster interracial fellowship and fight racial injustice since the 1950s, Emerson and Smith document the myriad of ways that those same communities remain bulwarks of structural racism. In one of their more damning discoveries, they survey numerous white evangelicals—from predominantly white neighborhoods, churches, and schools—who are convinced that America no longer has a race problem. When pressed by the authors on why the average net worth of African Americans is much lower than that of white Americans, several interviewees conclude that African Americans simply don’t value hard work or a good education. It never seems to occur to them that such a response is racist.