We Cannot Be Silent
An updated draft of a note sent by Jeff to employees, Friday evening, 5/29
Dear Burgundy Family,
This has been a very difficult week following similarly hard weeks. While I want to celebrate that we as a community have ‘survived’ distance learning, my entire consciousness this evening is crowded with the news stories, press conferences, heartfelt messages, and now the tumult spreading across the country in response to the ongoing utter injustice and the persistent systemic racism that is laid bare before us in America. The continuing murders of African American men, most recently Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, before our very eyes are enough to bring some of us to a breaking point. Our black friends and family members and colleagues need our love and care, and our active concern.
We must understand that they are not ‘okay!’ How could they be?! And how can we?
Not only must we notice and pay attention to this reality of ongoing horrific racial injustice, we must bring it (and its causes) into our hearts and speak truth and act with the long-held pain, experienced directly by some of us and indirectly by all, kept in mind. We must be activated in a time like this. And we as an institution must be visible in our frustration, but, more important, our resolve. What is happening today results from a centuries long failure of sustained attention, courage and willingness to realize a full democracy and undo old systems of white dominance and oppression. We can never be a diverse, equitable, and inclusive society or community or school community, or even a real friend group, if we are still in a moment like this. It is unacceptable to be silent. Silence is complicity.
I know that over the past few years, with Pat Harden’s and the Burgundy Diversity Committee’s lead, we have worked toward cultural competence and a more genuine exchange of perspectives and honest reckoning of our individual identities and realities and how they intersect. And, with activities like our White Fragility book discussions, we are working together to make space for even more honest sharing and growth about why we continue to agonize with rather than solve such trying issues. But there are times when we must be called individually as well as collectively to account and to action, and now is such a time, I believe. Therefore, our Burgundy core concern for diversity, equity, and inclusion must be real; while we have innumerable important and compelling pieces of business before us in the next two weeks, we are going to need to take time to consider, ‘Where is Burgundy in all this injustice?’ And ‘What are we prepared to do?’ And ‘Are we prepared to lead?’
Have a peaceful weekend. If you have not read any of the many pieces written in the past few days on what active allyship looks like, or if you have not watched the press conference in the Minnesota state house today, I encourage you to do so.
Peace,
Jeff
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