Faculty Books Recent publications by Austin Seminary professors The ABCs of Diversity: Helping Kids (and Ourselves!) Embrace our Differences, by & Y. Joy HarrisSmith and Carolyn B. Helsel, Associate Professor in the Blair R. Monie Distinguished Chair in Homiletics, Austin Seminary
congregational setting! What Harris-Smith and Helsel offer is a grace-filled, careful, and thoughtful response to that speaker. Helsel and Harris-Smith provide tactics and stories that are helpful for parents in talking with their children and why talking about difference is a life and death matter. The ABCs are incredibly helpful acronyms for Harris-Smith’s and Helsel’s approach to diversity when parenting (or in one’s everyday life). They leverage the ABCs to various ends: “Afraid, Backing away, and Control,” which names unhelpful responses to diversity; “Acknowledge, Be present, and Come Closer,” which names ways to stay engaged; or “Access, Build, Cultivate,” which names an approach to building a more just, inclusive, and equitable society. They take on issues like race, gender, sexuality, and religious diversity. Offering heartfelt stories from their lives, the authors bring parents into the conversation with the familiar real-life experiences and curiosities of children. More importantly, they challenge parents to self-educate about issues of diversity. The inner lives and curiosities of children expands well beyond the “celebration” of diversity so often found in many curriculums. Children are witnessing a world filled with violence. That is why one of the most important topics addressed in the book is “the talk.” For all those parents from diverse backgrounds, the talk has life and death consequences for children. The talk is precisely the type of education and formation so many Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and people of color have to have with our children about how their bodies are perceived by the majority world. And heartbreakingly, the talk is also about how to navigate in the body God gave them so that they will not be harmed, harassed, hurt, or something far worse. Being able to both be aware of
Chalice Press, 2020, 189 pages, $19.99 (paper). Reviewed by Dr. Patrick B. Reyes, senior director for learning design at the Forum for Theological Exploration.
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y face flushed with frustration. My co-facilitator and I had done everything to set the conditions for conversation and resources about parenting for faith and identify formation. The day’s topic was diversity and why it mattered. The phrase that triggered my emotion and heard all too often in these spaces left the lips of a parent as if almost on cue: “I don’t see difference and I don’t teach my children to see it either. We are all just human.” Parents are the worst! I thought to myself. Speaking as one, we simply care too much and listen too little. We had not even begun to share about the breadth of diversity in the room and a parent was already staking a claim. Facilitating a conversation regarding diversity, equity, inclusion, and access with parents in a congregation, I did my best to stay calm. Moments like these, innocent in the minds of the speaker, are taxing to every person of color, gender non-conforming, differently abled, and neuro-diverse person in the room. I signaled to my co-facilitator who said they would step up in these moments. It was their turn to gracefully address this alltoo-often comment made by well-meaning and well-intentioned majority culture parents. But they did not say a word. The commenter continued: “I don’t want my children thinking that they are different than other people. Wouldn’t that just reinforce the stereotypes that we are here to stop?” The ABCs of Diversity is the critical intervention parents need, and frankly, what I needed as a facilitator in this
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