By: Christian Shahzade & Derek Schoffstall (originally written as a response to an open letter written to our college about racial and ethnic minorities).

We can all agree that the Gordon community has confronted a provocative, potentially transformative discussion surrounding individuals’ ideas about racial and ethnic diversity. However, as a developing conversation, it is imperative to incorporate varying perspectives into our understanding of this topic and its resulting implications. For this reason, it is our intent to demonstrate an alternative approach to the concerns that have been laid out by our friends within the Gordon community. Ultimately, we aim to advocate for a unification of our community that avoids polarization, while embodying Christ-like love and understanding.

In order to humbly and aptly approach this discussion, we believe that is first necessary to restructure our semantics surrounding this topic. Presently, many individuals approach this discussion in an “us and them” manner of speaking- creating distinct and separate groups of individuals. In light of this, we propose that it would be far better to dispose of the “them” category, proceeding as a unified body, which retains the invaluable features of its diversity, without sacrificing the benefits of cohesion. By modifying our way of speaking about this topic we would inevitably affect our response in a proactive, biblical, and ultimately more loving way.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once wrote that we should not be judged by the color of our skin, but rather, by the content of our character. Although racial and cultural differences are certainly features of our personhood that ought to be celebrated, they should not be the determining factors of our worth or value. We cannot allow our particular racial or cultural affiliations to undermine our ability to recognize that we have an identity outside of these groups.

In recent discussions within our community, there have been several instances of extreme polarization regarding this topic. One particular instance of this is the ongoing notion that “majority” students are universally unable or unwilling to understand the difficulties of racial and cultural “minority” students. Although it’s obviously impossible to understand the intricacies and struggles of a particular demographic, it is similarly unreasonable to condemn a particular group for their inability to fully identify. Fundamentally, this type of polarized thinking assumes that we are all one-dimensional individuals with no meaningful diversity apart from our racial differences. In reality we are: physically, socially, spiritually, emotionally, politically, ideologically, and relationally diverse from one another. When we view one another and ourselves in a holistic and integrated way, the lines of majority and minority become blurred and arbitrary. An isolated discussion of the racial dimension does little more than reduce the brilliant complexity of individuals to their skin color, at the cost of the rest of their personhood. For this reason, we ought not condemn the “majority” for their ignorance while distancing ourselves from them, but instead we must embrace our racial diversity in light of our shared brotherhood in Christ. Doing so would allow us to effectively move forward and systematically resolve these issues together, as one body.