Controversy around W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Racial Healing Initiative

We strongly disagree with an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by Stephan Thernstrom that argued that certain efforts to address racism in our society are misguided.

Voices for America’s Children, the nation’s largest network of multi-issue children’s advocacy organizations and a W.K. Kellogg Foundation grantee, has worked for the past 25 years to improve the lives of all children across the nation. We believe true equity means that a child’s life outcomes cannot be predicted by race or ethnicity. Sadly, this is not the case in America today. There are enormous gaps between children of color and their white counterparts across every major indicator of child well-being. These inequities are created by structures, public policies and practices that (often unintentionally) produce racial gaps.

We have worked much of the 20th century to close this divide. But with racial gaps so evident, we must redouble our efforts. This is the aspiration of the Kellogg Foundation’s “America Healing Initiative”: to go to the places where inequity exists and improve the lives of children there.