“The Christian Does Rightly and Leaves the Results with the Lord”—Sometimes: On the Pragmatic Affinities between Antiracist Writing Pedagogy and Religious Practice

Abstract

Critics of antiracist pedagogy analogize it to a religious practice in order to discredit it. This essay interrogates the rhetorical affordances and limitations of that analogy. Drawing on antiracist scholarship by Young, Inoue, and Kendi, critiques of antiracist pedagogy by Smith and McWhorter, and the author’s own experiences with Mennonite theology and antiracist pedagogy, the essay argues that despite the totalizing scope of some antiracist theory, its enactment in the classroom is often pragmatic and vitally attentive to local histories and needs. To demonstrate how antiracist pedagogy operates, the author offers two examples from the field of writing studies: code-meshing and labor-based grading. Close attention to these approaches shows that while some of the theory that underpins them is as rigid as some strict religious practices, antiracist writing pedagogy can be, and often is, enacted selectively and strategically to affirm and empower students.