Journal
of Catholic Social Thought
Volume 3
Number 1
Winter - 2006
Thomas Merton
on Racism in America:
A View from the Margins
Albert Raboteau
Princeton
University
In November of
1964, the Cistercian monk, Thomas Merton, well known for his
autobiographical and contemplative writings, published a book called
"Seeds of Destruction," which included a strong indictment of the role
of white liberals in the Civil Rights movement. Merton predicted that
Civil Rights legislation, while necessary, would not be sufficient to
solve America's race problem. What was needed was radical personal and
social change and unless such change took place, violence was a real
possibility. Merton's views were widely criticized as pessimistic and
unfair. His turn to political issues was judged improper and intemperate
for a cloistered monk. But, the urban race riots of the summer of 1977
proved Merton's views to have been prescient. His essays on race
constitute a broad analysis and critique of American society, linking
racism to consumerism, war, and colonialism, a perspective derived from
his role as a monk, a man on the margins, who acknowledged his own role
as a "guilty bystander." Does Merton's analysis of race and his
insistence on the complementarity of black and white speak to our racial
situation today?
