Between Sisters

In a world laced with the lethal threads of racism, sexism, classism, and sexual oppression we need a liberating hope that dismantles these intersecting problems that render us into a stupor of chronic despair. In the United States, where the color of your skin can determine life or death, we need hope that will give us life abundantly. In a country where state laws prohibited mixed-race marriages between white and black people as recent as the year 2000 and black/white mixed-race children were demonized by both whites and blacks, our hope must be inspired by the Holy Spirit, God the Creator and Redeemer at work in the world today. This book offers emancipatory hope as this divine hope. With a focus on black/white mixed-race young women and their troubling relationships with women and girls of all ethnicities, Between Sisters provides a process toward emancipatory hope through forgiveness, femaleship, fortitude, and freedom. The process toward emancipatory hope challenges Christian churches to practice forgiveness, femaleship, fortitude, and freedom in a racist society. While the process is not without struggle, it promises that hope through the power of the Holy Spirit will someday usher in a society of justice, peace, and love. ""Dr. Parker skillfully draws our attention to the complex intersection of race, class, gender, and sexuality through the stories of biracial women. She knits together a new narrative to create a vibrant tapestry of strength and resilience that is born out of struggle, yet forges liberating pathways toward a future filled with hope. A balm for the weary soul."" –Leah Gunning Francis, PhD, Vice President of Academic Affairs, Dean of the Faculty, Christian Theological Seminary; Author of Ferguson and Faith: Sparking Leadership and Awakening Community ""Evelyn Parker has done it again Between Sisters will quickly become a primary resource in practical theology, Christian education, and pastoral theology for those seeking to understand the struggles and chronic despair of black girls, in this case mixed-raced girls. It also helps us peer into how some emerge from these experiences to become strong women of color. Resourcing personal stories, Parker studies the everyday realities that mixed-race female youth face in the intersectionality of race, gender, class, and sexuality. Parker seeks to be in solidarity for action and social justice. Her challenge is for us to weigh how emancipatory hope rises out of these girls' relationships–a hope that liberates through a process of forgiveness, femaleship, fortitude, and freedom. A hope with which Parker inspires us into solidarity for action "" –Dale P. Andrews, Vanderbilt University Evelyn L. Parker is Susanna Wesley Centennial Professor of Practical Theology at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University. She is the author of Trouble Don't Last Always: Emancipatory Hope among African American Adolescents (2003) and editor of The Sacred Selves of Adolescent Girls: Hard Stories of Race, Class, and Gender (2006).