ABSTRACT
In theologian Henri Nouwen's book With Open Hands, he includes a section on “Prayer and Revolution,” which ends with the declaration: “God, give me the courage to be revolutionary…Give me the courage to loosen myself from this world. Teach me to stand up free and to shun no criticism…Make me free, make me poor in this world, then I will be rich in the real world, which this life is all about. God, thank you for the vision of the future, but make it fact and not just theory.” In keeping with Nouwen's insistence that we move always from theory to practice, Writing Beyond Race is subtitled Living Theory and Practice. This subtitle is meant to evoke for the reader an awareness that there is an experiential practice that the forthcoming ideas and theory are meant to bring forth. Theory, then, becomes a map that if followed will guide us in the direction of liberatory terrain. This is especially true of theory that aims to heighten our awareness of the ways living in a culture of domination governed by a politics of imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy impacts all our lives.
