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brooke hoffman's avatar

Hello, Dr. Sider!

Thank you for your blog. I have found it very encouraging and helpful during this election season.

Since you asked for our input, I would like to give some! 🙂 I taught in Philadelphia for 10 years after which I co-founded a non-profit for the neighborhood public middle/high school where I taught. I obtained my Ph.D. in Education with a focus on Applied Linguistics and now teach pre-service teachers. I would like to recommend a bit of revision for the paragraph on education:

"We confess as white evangelicals that our children have often benefited from educational opportunity not available to many African-American and Latino children. We know that the education available in poor, largely minority, urban school districts is much poorer than the education available in more wealthy, largely white, suburban school districts."

First, I'm wondering about the focus on African-American and Latino children. Maybe children and youth of color would be better? Or "minoritized children and youth"? Or include immigrant children and youth? One aspect of racism that I've encountered is that it pits minoritized groups against each other. One form of this racism is the "Model Minority Myth" that lumps all Asians together and declares that they are successful and not affected by racism. In fact, many Asian children and youth (e.g., Vietnamese, Cambodian) also do not have access to equitable educational opportunities.

Second, I'd encourage you to use the word "minoritized" rather than "minority."

Third, I would argue that it's not the education itself that is poor. In fact, urban teachers are doing more with less! The issue is more complex than your statement suggests. It is not a clear "urban education bad, suburban education good" dichotomy. Instead, I would focus on funding formulas that value the education of white, suburban children and youth over the education of minoritized children and youth in urban areas. I think the term "under-resourced" rather than good or bad/poor is helpful.

Fourth, I would argue that minoritized children and youth in ALL schools, regardless of whether the schools are rich, poor, urban, suburban, private, or public, have less equitable educational opportunities. Two quick examples: (a) Minoritized children and youth are less likely to be recruited for gifted and talented programs and more likely to be placed in special education programs. (b) Their home culture and language (or dialect of English) are likely to be viewed as deficient compared to their white, monolingual English-speaking peers.

Finally, I think the paragraph absolves the white evangelical from their personal role in this. Most white parents actively seek out white-dominate educational opportunities for their children. We, as white evangelicals, have and continue to play a significant role in the segregation of schools in the United States.

I hope this is helpful! I think it is a worthwhile challenge to craft a concise statement while maintaining the needed nuance, and I appreciate your leadership in this.

Sincerely,

Brooke Hoffman

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Carter's avatar

This is well written. There are some instances where different wording may be better. For example, "acknowledge" rather than "confess" might be better - specifically when acknowledging instances of the past (e.g., Native Americans and slavery). As you said in Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, God holds the people who committed the sin, not their children, responsible for it. If you want to use the word "confess" it might be better to use it in the sense that we confess that we have been apathetic in regards to this past harm. It could be worded in a way that says we "acknowledge" these past wrongs and we "confess" that we have been apathetic about them and the ongoing harm that they still cause.

It might also be a good idea to acknowledge that we will likely not see eye to eye on all things with our brothers in Christ of different races. For example, I believe that there are many evangelicals (myself among them) who are eager to support movements like Black Lives Matter but who are hesitant because of other things that they stand for (e.g., pro choice advocacy, the breakdown of the nuclear family, etc). An acknowledgement of this may help encourage many evangelicals to stand with the message of this statement, because I also believe that many evangelicals have felt attacked as racists because they would not fully embrace movements like Black Lives Matter for the reasons mentioned above.

I hope that this is helpful.

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