On NPR this morning, I listened to an interview with General Martin Dempsey, who discussed the importance of sense-making as a core component of the type of leadership needed now. A few minutes later, Nick, the owner of a tattoo shop on Melrose Avenue, adamantly stated that "We've all got a voice. We've all got to use our voices to make sense of all this."Consider that, within the span of a few minutes, two powerful statements came from individuals from radically different walks of life: a career military officer and a local small business owner, both advocating for the same premise: making sense of what we have experienced and continue to experience as a country.
Yesterday, in our special virtual town hall focusing on racial equity, over 100 members of the West community began the slow, sometimes uncomfortable process of sense-making in our roles as educators and as human beings. While the conversation was originally predicated on identifying the role we should play as educators, it slowly evolved into something more productive, more intensely personal, and more visceral: stepping back to first listen to each other and to move into that uncomfortable space about race and racism. We realized that we must find our own voices, a fundamental step that is necessary before we can authentically help our students with their personal process of sense-making.
Tim Walz, the Governor of Minnesota, earlier this week expressed his concern that "I'm not sure that we get another shot at this as a country." Our town hall cannot be a "one-off;" in other words, it can't be the only thing we do to salve our souls and then to move on to business as usual. Because so many of yesterday's participants felt that the time in smaller chat rooms was meaningful--but too short--our next step is to create a series of small chat rooms to continue the conversation. An announcement as to day/date/time will be posted via email.
It is imperative that we infuse the concept of racial equity throughout our institution, as reflected in our services, our curriculum, our hiring practices, and our way of being with each other. The opportunity--no, the necessity--of being uncomfortable with the subject of racial equity and to face this discomfort in conversations with others is a fundamental step toward achieving our goal to help our students find their voices as well.