You're listening to the Allender Center podcast with Dr. Dan Allender.

This week, Dan is joined by friend and colleague Wendell Moss to talk about the implications

of the phrase, I am not a racist. Dan and Wendell ask deeply reflective

questions. Are we willing to reflect on the racial trauma our country holds? Are we willing to

acknowledge what is held in our own bodies and hearts in regards to racism? So today, we invite

you, as compassionate followers of Jesus, to join us as courageous listeners and ask,

what work needs to be done in order to move from not being a racist to becoming an anti-racist?

We're going to start this podcast by simply saying there is no way to do this well, no way to

accomplish all that I would wish to accomplish, because whenever we deal with racial trauma,

we are stepping into a deeply complex, at times overwhelmingly fraught, contentious realm. And I do so with a dear friend

and colleague Wendell Moss. And so Wendell, as we begin this process of talking about what it means

to be an anti-racist, I just want to make a statement and then let you take it wherever you would wish.

And I have come to actually be able to name.

As of even maybe, I'm going to say about two months ago, I would have used this phrase.

I'm not a racist.

I know enough, read enough, dealt with enough reality to know every white person benefits

from the reality of racism, from the privilege, from the power, from our families.

In one sense, we can underline that racism is built into the very substructure of the

constitution, let alone to American life. And no person can escape the reality that there's a

racism that they need to acknowledge within their own heart. But I would have said, I'm not a racist, but I've come to understand that's a kind of neutrality

that is not the same thing as saying, I am an anti-racist.

So as we begin this conversation, what I'd love for you to do is just take us into where your mind

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