Winner of Christianity Today’s Award of Merit 2019

White Picket Fences​

Turning towards love in a world divided by privilege

White Picket Fences: Turning toward Love in a World Divided by Privilege is a memoir about acknowledging the harm of privilege and responding to that harm with love. Beginning with her childhood in North Carolina and tracing her life through studying at Princeton to raising her children, Amy Julia explores her role in a culture that constructs dividing walls around racial identity, ability, and economic status. As she reflects on her daughter Penny, who has Down syndrome, Amy Julia considers how embracing our common humanity can begin to heal the cultural divisions of ability, race, ethnicity and social class. She invites readers “to consider the reality of privilege, the benefits and wounds that come from it, and whether we can respond to it with generosity, humility, and hope.”

I have been given much that I do not deserve, and my very real social privilege has cut me off from others as much as it has also made my life comfortable. But social privilege is not the end of my story. The real privilege of my life has come in learning what it means to love others, that love involves suffering and sacrifice and sleepless nights and tears and heartache and great gifts.

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