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A review by lukeaschumann
The Myth of the American Dream: Reflections on Affluence, Autonomy, Safety, and Power by D.L. Mayfield
5.0
This book is, on the surface, reflections on how author D.L. Mayfield, a white woman of relative privilege, benefits from elements of the “American Dream” such as affluence, autonomy, safety, and power—and how others don’t benefit from these very things. But coinciding with this overarching narrative is one of her, as a committed Christian, trying to emulate what it means to love her neighbor(s) in her daily life. Though her temptation/occasional intention is to “save the world with her own two hands,” the true impact comes when she focuses on her immediate community. When she collaborates with her children’s underfunded school. When she shares meals with her literal neighbors. And it’s a story about her learning to release herself of previous assumptions and privileges, both with the larger political stories of today like #BLM, and the “smaller” ones concerning Muslim refugees—who she teaches and lives near. Maybe her role as a Christian, she posits, isn’t to “convert” everyone she encounters. Maybe it’s instead to love her neighbors where she and they are in the same way she believes that Christ loves her and all of us. Maybe it’s to help bring others to realize “imago dei” (being made in the image of God), whether that’s through telling a lonely friend that she is loved or by telling off someone who didn’t recognize someone else’s imago dei (in a loving way, of course).
For me, this book has helped put words to my own efforts of recognizing and releasing my privilege in recent years (to mixed success), and helped provide real stories and tangible practices I can look into myself. It is quick and accessible with short chapters, but it’s also packed, rich with wisdom and honesty. It breaks down the aforementioned categories (affluence, autonomy, safety, and power) in personal ways that can be understood by anyone. And I would recommend it for anyone, but particularly perhaps those who, like D.L. and I, grew up American, conservative, Christian, and privileged and who are wanting to learn how to dismantle our privilege in ways that advance the kingdom of God rather than the “kingdom” of the United States. Because Christians *should* believe that we are citizens of heaven before we pledge allegiance to any earthly nation, and being a citizen of heaven has much greater and more loving and equitable implications than any of us could ever imagine or create ourselves, try though we might.
For me, this book has helped put words to my own efforts of recognizing and releasing my privilege in recent years (to mixed success), and helped provide real stories and tangible practices I can look into myself. It is quick and accessible with short chapters, but it’s also packed, rich with wisdom and honesty. It breaks down the aforementioned categories (affluence, autonomy, safety, and power) in personal ways that can be understood by anyone. And I would recommend it for anyone, but particularly perhaps those who, like D.L. and I, grew up American, conservative, Christian, and privileged and who are wanting to learn how to dismantle our privilege in ways that advance the kingdom of God rather than the “kingdom” of the United States. Because Christians *should* believe that we are citizens of heaven before we pledge allegiance to any earthly nation, and being a citizen of heaven has much greater and more loving and equitable implications than any of us could ever imagine or create ourselves, try though we might.