I can't not talk about it

Atlanta in black and white. (Image by Stephen Marc)

On Friday night, Rayshard Brooks, a twenty-seven-year-old African-American man, was shot and killed by Atlanta police at a Wendy’s that happens to be about a ten-minute drive from my school.

As an educator and business owner, even if I wanted to look the other way, I couldn’t. Which has always been the daily reality of Black people in America.

My first exposure to the mortal peril a person might face at the hands of law enforcement simply by being Black wasn’t until I heard the story of Amadou Diallo, as told in Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink in 2005. In 1999, Diallo, a Guinean man, was shot just outside his apartment building by four plainclothes officers. Gladwell, in his book, delves into the unconscious bias that leads to a fear response and causes a person to panic or get angry.

This phenomenon is highly relevant to the classroom or workplace, because the same dynamic can take place between colleagues, from teacher to student, or between two students. The consequences may not be deadly, but they can still cause a lifetime of pain. As a school leader and employer, I take this very seriously, but I haven’t done all I can (for instance, through training and policy-making) to prevent problems from occurring or deal with them when they occur. I need to further my own education to learn how to do that.

I have never wanted to present myself as someone who has everything figured out. From my very first post here, I wanted to show you that I’m always evolving and growing, setting an example for my students, clients, and other people whom I mentor. I seek to share with you things I’ve learned and things I’m learning. I’m trying to make it okay for us all to experiment, mess up, and not have everything perfectly aligned right from the start. If we want to be perfect at the beginning, there’s no room for growth.

So that’s where I am, realizing that the urgency of dealing with the issues of race in our country is going to have to go beyond seeking diversity on our team, teaching our students a non-whitewashed version of history, including the work of people of color in our curriculum, and cultivating a culture that welcomes everyone. We’re going to have to talk directly about the things happening just outside our door. We have to delve into the beliefs and biases that contribute to not just horrific events that are safely in the past, but the ones that are taking place today. We have to acknowledge the systems that have enabled them all along.

This work doesn’t have to take place just in the classroom — it can happen in so many contexts, involving parents and other community members. But it does have to happen.

In leading conversations about race, I’m limited by my own perspective and identity as a white woman. But I can’t wait for someone else to step up and do it. I’m responsible for what happens in my own organization. So I step forward, not knowing where the path will lead — at least I’m used to that part.