Description
Book SynopsisIn this unprecedented book, contributors use Buddhist philosophical and contemplative traditions, both ancient and modern, and deploy critical philosophy of race, and critical whiteness studies, to address the proverbial elephant in the room â whiteness.
Trade ReviewIt is high time for a book like this. For too long the story of the transmission of Buddhism to the West has been told without attention to the ways that transmission is inflected by race and racism. This carefully curated collection of essays opens that question, and offers a rich set of perspectives on the complex interaction of Buddhist transmission, ideology, and practice with race and racism in the West. A must read for anyone interested in contemporary global Buddhism. -- Jay Garfield, Smith College
It is impossible to read Buddhism and Whiteness and not experience an itch for action. This timely—and indeed, “futurely”— volume challenges all of us to reflect creatively and imaginatively about how we can best make a politics of the possible a constitutive contour of our religious lives, our efforts to learn about and from Buddhism, and especially our everyday lives, even as all of these are deeply conditioned and distorted by structural racism together with other oppressive and exclusionary structures. -- Charles Hallisey, Harvard Divinity School
Buddhism and Whiteness instructs with the spirit of Thich Naht Hanh— “Freedom is not given to us by anyone, we have to cultivate it.” Composting ignorance and violence, this volume seeds peace for local and global care from US to Rohingya and Yemen communities. -- Joy James, author of Seeking the Beloved Community
Table of ContentsForeword Jan Willis Introduction Emily McRae and George Yancy 1. “We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Programming to Bring You This Very Important Public Service Announcement . . .”: aka Buddhism as Usual in the Academy Sharon Suh 2. Undoing Whiteness in American Buddhist Modernism: Critical, Collective, and Contextual Turns Ann Gleig 3. White Delusion and Avidyā: A Buddhist Approach to Understanding and Deconstructing White Ignorance Emily McRae 4. Whiteness and the Construction of Buddhist Philosophy in Meiji Japan Leah Kalmanson 5. Racism and Anatta: Black Buddhists, Embodiment, and Interpretations of Non-Self Rima Vesely-Flad 6. “The Tranquil Meditator” Laurie Cassidy 7. “Beyond Vietnam”: Martin Luther King, Jr., Thích Nhất Hạnh, and the Confluence of Black and Engaged Buddhism in the Vietnam War Carolyn M. Jones Medine 8. The Unbearable Will to Whiteness Jasmine Syedullah 9. Making Consciousness an Ethical Project: Moral Phenomenology in Buddhist Ethics and White Anti-Racism Jessica Locke 10. “bell hooks Made Me a Buddhist”: Liberatory Cross-Cultural Learning—Or Is This Just Another Case of How White People Steal Everything? Carol J. Moeller 11. Excoriating the Demon of Whiteness from Within: Disrupting Whiteness through the Tantric Buddhist Practice of Chöd and Exploring Whiteness from Within the Tradition Lama Justin von Bujdoss 12. The Interdependence and Emptiness of Whiteness Bryce Huebner 13. Taking and Making Refuge in Racial [Whiteness] Awareness and Racial Justice Work Rhonda Magee 14. A Buddhist Phenomenology of the White Mind Joy Brennan 15. The White Feminism in Rita Gross’ Critique of Gender Identities and Reconstruction of Buddhism Hsiao Lan Hu Afterword Charles Johnson
