Home again home again....
On the shuttle watching a car merge into the lane beside mine and thinking...
On the shuttle watching a car merge into the lane beside mine and thinking...
We have no choice but to trust as we speed along that other drivers will remain within the confines of their lanes, even when we are going in the same direction.
....because if they don't, we know what catastrophe looks like, if not through our own experiences, through the experience of others.
As more and more educators of color become visible, speak up about oppressive systems many of us have lived and operated in for decades, it is good to remember...
Just because somebody passes the mic, or one gets attention, accolades, opportunities as a result of their hard work...
...does not mean there is less for you.
Our liberation and oppression are intertwined. And so...we must all work together to reverse the psychological effects of living in a society that would pit us against one another. We must row together.
Be the change you seek at the micro level in that one on one conversation with the quiet kid in the room and at the macro level if you are fortunate enough to have someone's time...their endorsement, their eyes, or listening ears...
Don't get distracted or allow our country's sordid colonial ethos of "divide and conquer" to take hold inside of you. That seed once planted has ugly roots that are twice as hard to dig out as it is to just make your heart and mind uninhabitable by such weeds in the first place.
As we creep up on this "holiday" and remember all the ways and all the people who are not free...it is also good to think of small steps and big moves you can take to free your mind, and your consciousness from the internalized roots of oppression.
The heavy internal work is often the hardest, especially when you are used to operating in a world where you've learned to manipulate or navigate structures of power in a way that rewards you with privilege, sometimes earned, sometimes not...& that has consistently worked for you
Let me reassure you that it's okay to let go. But let this be your gentle reminder too that true liberation does have a cost. If it's true that it's impossible to be born and raised here and have a mind unmarked by scars...wounds inflicted by racism and systemic oppression...
Then it is also true that we must all be a part of the medicine that helps one another heal...love one another...Mais amor, por favor. That is true freedom. Happy 4th. Julia out. 🎆🎉✌🏾
