America's Racial Karma: An Invitation to Heal

As deft and humane a book on the topic as one could hope for and Ward's late teacher makes his presence quite known.

Ward not only gets the vital point that this must be an "invitation," as it's not really the purview of the dharma to proselytize and beat the world and one other into shapes we prefer. I'm overjoyed that he says skillful observation of intention is the seat of undoing racialized delusion as too much social justice discourse—some even endorsed by Buddhist groups in the West—repeats the idea that intention doesn't matter which to me guarantees misunderstanding, dishonesty and ill will.

Ward hedges a lot, particularly when using a grab bag of pop psychology to buttress his arguments. It's frustrating that he endorses the show more Fields Sisters' notion of race as useful technology for plunder then elides the centrality of class (it's one in a list of several identities) within the malevolence of capitalism (it's one of a few names for bad stuff) and racialism's efficacy toward the end of property owners keeping hold of policy in a country whose constitution was written to protect property and the exclusive right to it.

My political differences with the text aside, Ward's intent to heal and not to indict steers this brief read toward being the better of the books on the topic I've read. show less