Picking Up Our Tools

To see my texting history with two of my friends would be to uncover content of the broad, big, and heavy, the personal and pop, high and low. Topics range from grappling with the psychological undertaking of women publicly coming forth in domestic violence cases, toilet cleaning and the subsequent lack of recognition thereof, the future of filibusters, Daniel Day Lewis or Ralph Fiennes’ movie reel, institutional racism, identity and what it means to be children or grandchildren of European and Asian immigrants, the responsibilities of sending children to independent schools. And so on.

A recent text conversation started with a clip I shared of author, lecturer and professor, Dr. Betina Love, urging white people to be “co-conspirators,” moving beyond mere allyship. Having seen her speak at a Women in Leadership Conference soon after, Dr. Love posed this question: How do we move social justice work out of the “making a list” realm, into the notion that social justice is a lifestyle? As an avid listmaker myself, I was a bit haunted. (I was once gifted a journal whose cover read, “List Makers Gonna Make Lists.”) A few weeks later I heard consultant Lori Cohen speak on decentering whiteness, and she posed a similar question to a group of white anti-racist heads who gather monthly, “How do I make anti-racism a way of being?”

In response to Dr. Love’s video, a passage from Bruno Latour arrived on my text thread:

"...what performs a critique cannot also compose. It is really a mundane question of having the right tools for the right job. With a hammer (or a sledge hammer) in hand you can do a lot of things: break down walls, destroy idols, ridicule prejudices, but you cannot repair, take care, assemble, reassemble, stitch together."

Having read this passage I screenshotted it and went into head-of-school-mode, reflecting on my past four years at Westland School and what I understand about the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts I have led in partnership with the Diversity Leadership Team of the Board, now called the Committee for Institutional Equity. I took stock. I made a list (!) of major initiatives as well as the level/s of change (personal, interpersonal, institutional, and cultural) in which the initiative resides. As I did this audit, I asked myself these questions: What tools did Westland utilize these last four years? What tools am I holding onto now? Are these the tools of “co-conspiracy”?

The last four years have included a range of initiatives, some of which I’ll list here: we invested in an ongoing commitment to DEI-focused professional development for staff and the Board of Trustees; developed and launched racial-ethnic affinity group programing; hired nationally renowned DEI practitioner, Rasheda Carroll; worked to promote Westland’s commitment to this essential work to the broader city and state-wide community through the California Association of Independent Schools and the California Association of Teacher Development.  

When I made the list and analyzed the initiatives of the last four years, I experience both fear of the unintentional tick of “credentialing” progress and “downness,” and I also fear the persistent sense of, “This hasn’t been enough. It isn’t enough”... especially as the demands of the COVID context’s unrelenting relentlessness have vacuumed up so much time and depleted so much personal and collective energy.

Acknowledging these fears, I step back and return to Latour’s tools when I think of today’s DEI work. There are a lot of hammers right now in society, and it’s been a long time coming – centuries. Some might wonder, at Westland are there, as Latour puts it, walls to hammer down? Prejudices to ridicule? To think not would be to minimize or even deny the political and psychological impact of racism in our U.S. society.

Hard-to-swallow examples come to my mind: a new mom of color some years ago being asked if she was a child’s nanny by another parent; a white parent complaining to me that their friends talk about race too much since I’ve been head – that they used to be fun; a community member expressing disapproval of a colleague of color’s “big words” and speaking style. I don’t think these good-intentioned people meant to offend anyone. Yet, the impact of their words is as hurtful as overt racism is. That’s the way modern oppression works. These aren’t pretty examples, but as Fred Rogers once said, “Anything that is mentionable can be manageable.” I believe all schools must pursue these examples, lift them up, so that we can bring people into dialogue, education, racial reckoning, and the healing of wounds – visible wounds and as Wendell Barry writes, hidden wounds as well.

I admit too, that I am craving more stitching alongside the hammering, when I think of the repair and connection needed in our world. Stitching is subtle though. The work of a stitcher doesn’t make breathy headlines.

Stitching can be as tiny as leaning into a conversation to share impact. It could be explaining, with patience, that we were caught in and were taught by a racist system. By sharing information about institutional oppression, people won’t feel essentialized – that phenomenon where they feel like someone is accusing them of being a *bad* person, which so often causes people to shut down. Stitching is creating space to stay put in a person’s impact and not jump into well-meaning intention when there’s a miss. It’s sharing stories that both make connections through what we have in common as humans and hold up – celebrate – difference. Stitching is disagreeing with radical candor in a way that conveys decency and respect. This last one is something that is royally missing in today’s climate where call-out and cancel culture, either/or thinking, and a competitive framework that overvalues “being right” over listening with openness and curiosity are all too common.

I am also acutely aware of the resistance popping up in recent articles. While some important contradictions have been raised for independent schools to consider and pursue, I believe the opinions presented are reductive and unfairly mock independent schools’ DEI work. Acknowledging these recent articles, Private School Village, a local organization in town whose mission is to build community by providing programming, organizing events, collaborating, and sharing resources that support Black families throughout the private school experience, wrote a powerful Instagram post. It reads: “Several articles have been written about a possible growing undercurrent of resistance to social justice and racial equity efforts in our schools. Let me be clear – this is not new, not growing, and certainly not a surprise. This resistance has, in fact, been an ever-present constant for many throughout generations in private schools and it’s beyond the time for that to change.” I believe a hammer, needle, and thread are needed for this necessary time of change.

Stitching is micro. It takes concentrated time and focus, leaning in. Even just the initial step of threading the needle requires patience and has the potential for maddening frustration. I believe a co-conspirator needs to pick up the hammer – grab the flag pole as Dr. Love describes – and grab the needle and thread.

I also invite us to pick up and use one more tool besides our hammers and our needles and thread: a mirror. Grabbing hold of a hand-held mirror allows me to practice honest, most oftentimes uncomfortable, self-focus. In her talk on decentering whiteness, Lori Cohen calmly laid out that, “discomfort becomes default,” when trying to make anti-racism a way of being.   

Last month I was sent the below parent reflection on Westland’s parent affinity group program and thought of this metaphorical mirror, this essential tool that promotes discomfort, as counter intuitive as that may be:

I want racial violence and systemic oppression of racialized communities to end. I want my children to care that the violence ends and to have the tools and courage to participate towards this goal. I want to mitigate the harm I exact on others by my inaction and/or actions. I think an important first step is to take responsibility to learn about racism and white supremacy and how we as white people enact oppression. I see the affinity group as a space to engage in reflective practice, which I see as essential to my children's healthy development. My participation in the affinity group models for my children that it is worthy of their time and effort to engage in open, constructive reflection on their position and privilege.

The tangible thing: The affinity space is a special place where I can sit with what is happening in my body, with the thoughts and emotions that are coming up in a way that doesn't require me to put up my defenses. It is only at this point that I can truly examine whether and how to live in accordance with what I say I believe. With my kids, I find that the more I practice wondering aloud about my experience (the constriction in my body or the thoughts), the more I can wonder aloud with them about theirs. I can catch my cringe when I hear my son playing "war" with two groups (Black people and white people) and more naturally approach the play with genuine curiosity rather than fear. 

What would it mean for all of us to reflect on this level more often? How can we create more space to hold up a mirror and practice self-reflection? What would it mean for us to decide that one year into a global pandemic, we will create – demand – spaciousness to make anti-racism a lifestyle?

I know I have work to do. We have work to do, always. Regarding the work of diversity, equity, and inclusion – whether you’re in it, starting it, resurrecting it, resisting it, living it – I commit Westland to be a school community that has access to all tools necessary. I commit Westland to become and be an institution where all people belong – just like we sing most Fridays, as written by a Westland student in the 70’s: “We can share this world together and look towards a better day.” We’ll hammer, break down walls, repair, take care of, assemble, reassemble, reflect, and stitch – one seam at a time – together in a community of diverse co-conspirators invested in equity, inclusion, and justice.