Problematic Heroes

Posted on May 28, 2015 by Sarah Shugars

Heroes play an important role in our culture.

Whether they come in the form of celebrities, caregivers, or activists, heroes inspire us. They show us what a person can achieve, and they provide guidance – intentionally or not – on how a person should live.

There’s just one thing – heroes aren’t perfect.

None of us are perfect.

I tend to think of Gandhi as the quintessential problematic hero. He is widely revered and his words are often uttered as hallowed. As if we could truly build a better world if only we could internalize what it means to be the change you wish to see in the world.

But despite his near-saint status, Gandhi was not without his faults.

Speaking of Jews in World War II era German, Gandhi wrote:

And suffering voluntarily undergone will bring [Jews] an inner strength and joy which no number of resolutions of sympathy passed in the world outside Germany can…The calculated violence of Hitler may even result in a general massacre of the Jews by way of his first answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant. For to the godfearing, death has no terror. It is a joyful sleep to be followed by a waking that would be all the more refreshing for the long sleep.

That’s some commitment to non-violence.

Furthermore, there is significant evidence that Gandhi was “a most dangerous, semi-repressed sex maniac.” It is certainly well documented that he preferred to sleep “naked next to nubile, naked women to test his restraint.”

I could go on with other problematic elements of Gandhi’s character and beliefs, but I think I’ll stop there.

The point is – the man was far from perfect.

And I don’t mean to pick on Gandhi. I suspect that under the surface of many of our revered, we’d find imperfections and flaws. Racism, dark elements of their past, or simply habits that would trouble our refined sensibilities.

There’s a reason why Jackie Robinson was selected as the first black major league baseball player:

The first black baseball player to cross the “color line” would be subjected to intense public scrutiny…the player would have to be more than a talented athlete to succeed. He would also have to be a strong person who could agree to avoid open confrontation when subjected to hostility and insults, at least for a few years.

And there’s a reason why Rosa Parks’ predecessors weren’t successful in launching the Montgomery Bus Boycott. 15 year-old Claudette Colvin, the first to be arrested for not moving to the back of the bus, was “too dark skinned, poor, and young to be a sympathetic plaintiff to challenge segregation.”

Activists Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, Mary Louise Smith and Jeanette Reese were similarly seen as not being the right icon for the movement.

But icons aren’t always selected by shrewd organizers, carefully crafting an effort to shift public opinion.

Sometimes these heroes just emerge.

And we should not be surprised to find them flawed.

Perhaps the Greeks were wise to see their gods as afflicted by the drama of human emotions; a hero always has his hubris.

And none of this is to say we should abandon our heroes – that we should be disappointed with their humanity and cast them aside for their flaws.

But we should see them not as a remote icons of perfection, but as whole people – struggling with their flaws just as we struggle with ours.

And then we much each decide whether we find a person’s failings forgivable – whether we can still find wisdom and insight in their words.

Okinawa

Posted on May 18, 2015 by Sarah Shugars

I recently heard a story that I’ve heard a few times before:

The Battle of Okinawa was one of the bloodiest skirmishes of World War II. The 82-day battle claimed the lives of 14,000 Allied forces and 77,000 Japanese soldiers. Most tragically, somewhere between 100,000 to 150,000 Japanese civilians died.

There’s just one thing: that story is a bit of WWII era political propaganda. Or at best, a misunderstanding of Japanese geopolitics.

The horror of Okinawa was used in part to justify the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

The two bombings claimed at least 129,000 lives – including many civilians in Hiroshima. But ultimately, we are to believe, the act was just. The Battle of Okinawa showed that the Japanese were exactly the monsters our propaganda made them out to be – cold and bloodthirsty. Willing to sacrifice themselves and their civilian population for a cause they foolishly found to be noble.

Using that logic, the bombings were a mercy, really.

Some estimates put the cost of a land war at 400,000 to 800,000 American fatalities and a shocking five to ten million Japanese fatalities.

The atomic bomb may have been a drastic assault, but ultimately it ended the war faster leading to fewer fatalities for Americans and the Japanese alike.

Now let’s back up a minute.

Let’s put aside the fact that its hard to be precise about the number of deaths in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, in part due to the terrible health impacts from radiation exposure.

What exactly did happen in Okinawa?

The number of deaths cited above are about as accurate as war fatality counts are likely to be. Many American’s died, many more in the Japanese army died, and even more civilians died.

But they weren’t Japanese civilians. They were Okinawans . Even amongst the military dead many of those “Japanese” soldiers were Okinawan conscripts.

Why does that distinction matter?

For centuries Okinawa had been an autonomous regime with it’s own distinct culture. The Okinawans faced increasing encroachment from Japanese forces and was officially annexed in 1879 – a mere 66 years before the Battle of Okinawa.

All of that is to say – the Okinawans were not Japanese. They were Okinawan. Culturally distinct and treated as second class citizens or worse by their Japanese oppressors. The Okinawans had no military tradition and “frustrated the Japanese with their indifference to military service.”

Those were the people who died in Okinawa.

Not rabid Japanese nationalists determined to do anything for victory. Simply civilians and civilians dressed up as soldiers. Forced into service for a repressive regime.

Casualties were so high at Okinawa because the Japanese didn’t really care whether the Okinawans lived or died.

We’d be right to judge the Japanese harshly for their disdain for Okinawan life – but we must find ourselves equally wanting. The American government has always cared more for American lives.

Perhaps that is right. And perhaps the nuclear bomb really was the moral thing to do.

But let’s always dig a little deeper, try a little hard to understand a people apart from ourselves. And let us not base our understanding off a caricature or off an outdated piece of propaganda.

And let us remember: Okinawans died here.

The Simple and Subversive Poetry of Piet Hein

Posted on May 8, 2015 by Sarah Shugars

When I was in elementary school someone gave me a big book of quotes on various subjects. One piece that stuck out were the simple lines:

Put up in a place
where it’s easy to see
the cryptic admonishment
T. T. T.

When you feel how depressingly
slowly you climb,
it’s well to remember that
Things Take Time!

That poem, or more properly, grook, was written by Danish scientist, poet and inventor Piet Hein.

If Hein already sounds like an interesting person, that’s because he was. Born in 1905, he was a creative and gifted thinker in a range of fields.

He began publishing his grooks – or gruks, for ‘GRin & sUK’ (“laugh & sigh”, in Danish) – in the daily newspaper Politiken in 1940. The works were printed under the headline “From day to day” and were taken as “poetic comments on small and great occurrences in everyday life.”

His first grook, for instance, read:

Losing one glove
is certainly painful,
but nothing
compared to the pain,
of losing one,
throwing away the other,
and finding
the first one again.

There’s something simple, playful, and relate-able in those simple lines about losing gloves.

But is that what the poem is really about?

The poem appeared shortly after the beginning of the Nazi occupation, and was interpreted by many – though not the censors – to have a more subversive meaning: When your freedoms is lost, don’t throw away your patriotism and become a collaborator.

Incidentally, Hein initially published under the pseudonym “Kumbel Kumbell,” kumbel being an Old Norse word for tombstone.

Perhaps one of his better known grooks is:

Taking fun
as simply fun
and earnestness
in earnest
shows how thoroughly
thou none
of the two
discernest.

A scientist by training – Hein worked with Niels Bohr for several years – he was also a dedicated artist, “Art,” he said, “is this: art is the solution of a problem which cannot be expressed explicitly until it is solved.”

In the end, Hein wrote more than 7000 grooks. He wrote in Dutch and English, but had his poems translated into many languages. As his estate puts it:

The small grooks belong to everybody, exactly as was Piet Hein’s original intention.

Rebellion Against the Authority of the Government

Posted on May 1, 2015 by Sarah Shugars

It seems that every time people are galvanized against injustice it comes as a surprise. As if nothing like this has ever happened before.

Daily Show host Jon Stewart recently called out Wolf Blitzer for claiming surprise at the protests and riots in Baltimore.

I can’t believe this is happening in an American city, Blitzer kept saying – despite having uttered the same response as events unfolded in Ferguson just a few months ago.

And, of course, if media’s memory is so bad it can’t even recall events within the past year, one can hardly expect the media – or the public at large – to connect current events to anything that could be considered historical.

But what’s more remarkable to me is not that people keep rising up – its that our own government keeps intervening to quell these uprisings.

In 1894, for instance, thousands of United States Marshals and some 12,000 United States Army troops were called to suppress American citizens boycotting in the Pullman Strike. Twenty-six civilians were killed.

In 1912, Lawrence, Massachusetts Mayor Michael Scanlon requested the aid of the state militia in confronting a textile strike. “A tumult is threatened,” Mayor Scanlon wrote. “A body of men are acting together and threaten by force to violate and resist the laws of the Commonwealth.”

Once called in, the militia took such brave and lawful steps as preventing striking parents from sending their children to safety in Philadelphia. Ordered to detain the children and arrest their parents, the police began clubbing both the children and their mothers while dragging them off.

Of course, with a well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the National Guard can trace its roots to 1628, when the Bay Colony – Massachusetts – received its charter, including total control over internal military and political organization.

However, the 1903 Dick Act – aptly named after Congressman Charles Dick – was really the beginning of the modern National Guard. This act resolved the issue of state vs. federal control when it came to deploying state militias. (In the war of 1812, for example, the New York militia refused to march to the aid of U.S. troops in Canada.)

The Dick Act empowered the President to deploy this state militias:

…whenever the United States is invaded, or in danger invasion, from any foreign nation or of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States, or the President is unable, with the other forces at his command, to execute the laws of the Union in any part thereof, it shall be lawful for the President to call forth, for a period not exceeding nine months, such number of the militia of the State or of the States or Territories or of the District of Columbia as he may deem necessary to repel such invasion, suppress such rebellion, or to enable him to execute such laws, and to issue his orders for that purpose to such officers of the militia as he may think proper.

The act was partially a response to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 which limited the power of the federal government to deploy military troops on U.S. soil. The National Guard is, importantly, an exception.

And since then National Guard has been regularly deployed to quell “rebellion against the authority of the Government.”

Governors, as primary commanders of their state’s National Guard, may also deploy these troops in “response to natural or man-made disasters or Homeland Defense missions.”

And not only as recently as Baltimore and Ferguson, the National Guard has been deployed in Los Angeles following the 1992 Rodney King beating; in Selma, Alabama; in Little Rock, Arkansas; and in several other cities.

So, it should be no surprise that people are protesting, and, unfortunately, it should be no surprise that National Guard troops are called in to stop them.

That is, after all, the history of this great country.

And the protests go on.

The Past is Public

Posted on April 29, 2015 by Sarah Shugars

Earlier this week, I attended the final “Tisch Talk in the Humanities” of the semester. This new series was launched by Tisch College to explore the intersections of humanities and civic work.

The final talk was on “neighboring,” a concept that was here taken to mean – essentially the opposite of “othering.”

When we “other” somebody we set them apart from ourselves. We emphasize difference and reinforce an “us” versus “them” dynamic.

Neighboring doesn’t mean abolishing differences, but rather embracing the broader commonalities of proximity.

We are all people. We are all in the same boat.

These are the declarations of neighboring.

An interesting point emerged from this conversation. Peter Probst, a professor of Art & Art History at Tufts, started discussing neighboring not only in the present tense, but in the context of history – in the context of preservation.

The past is public, he argued.

What we think of as history is actually a collection of individual stories brought into a collective whole.

That collective whole is jointly owned as “history,” but individual stories still have the right to resist the dominant narrative.

Thus preservation can be an act of neighboring, as historians seek to honor individual stories and include diverse narrative as part of the public whole.

If the past is public, then we all must be good stewards – not only of history but of our neighbor’s truths.

Discomfort with Ancestors

Posted on April 27, 2015 by Sarah Shugars

Years ago, my mother – who is really into genealogy – told me that one of my (white) ancestors had been lynched in the south because he’d been helping African Americans through the underground railroad.

I was so proud.

That’s the kind of person I wanted to be related to.

I, of course, don’t remember the details of what happened or how this person was related to me, but I remember – I’m descended from people who worked on the underground railroad. Folks who were on the right side of history. Who died for what they knew was just.

Several years after that, my mother was sharing another genealogical finding. It’s possible that I was not as attentive as a good daughter ought to be, until she said something that caught my ear. Something about an ancestor owning slaves.

No, no, I piped in. You told me that our family worked on the underground railroad!

My mother looked at me blankly as if I’d made the most nonsensical declaration she’d ever heard. Then she patiently explained to me that I was white – a fact she seemed to think had somehow eluded me.

Yes, yes, we have relatives who worked the underground railroad, she told me, but any white person whose family’s been in this country awhile is related to slave owners.

She hadn’t mentioned it before just as she hadn’t mentioned the sky was blue – it was obvious.

And yet there I was – a woman in my early 20s, just putting those pieces together.

There was a bit of a to-do last week about a certain actor who expunged his family’s slave-owning history from a genealogical documentary.

I can appreciate what he might have been thinking at the time – no, no, I’m not related to the bad guys.

Who would want to admit that?

The truth is, though, there is privilege even in that denial.

How many African Americans, do you suppose, who know their family has lived in this country for generations, tell themselves – no, no, my ancestors weren’t brought to this country as slaves.

Between 1525 and 1866, 12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World with an estimated 450,000 Africans arriving in the United States over the course of the slave trade.

I’m not sure that’s a piece of their past they have the luxury of denying.

Not as easily as I can casually claim ignorance of my own family’s slave-owning past, at least.

It’s important to recognize this history. To accept it.

The truth is – I didn’t work on the underground railroad and I didn’t own slaves. Those people are in my history, but they are not me.

I can’t claim divinity from one relative’s actions while claiming absolution from another’s. I have to make my own path, make my own choices. Informed by my history but not bound by it.

Indeed, we are all shaped by our past – but we are not doomed to repeat it.

Are Young People Good Protesters?

Posted on April 24, 2015 by Sarah Shugars

It seems as though there’s been a quite, but steady stream of complaints about the way young people protest.

Even among progressives who are supportive of the cause, I commonly hear remarks about how today’s protests – orchestrated by today’s young people – are ineffective, poorly executed, or even damaging to the cause.

Millennials Can’t Even Protest Right, declares a Daily Beast article reflecting on a successful 1976 Title IX protest. Forbes asks, Are Millennials Lazy Or Avant-Garde Social Activists? And, of course, there is ongoing debate about whether young people are real activists or just, in the words of the New York Times, Tumblr activists.

NPR is far more generous, detailing how young people near Ferguson, Mo. used social media as a tool to “plan and participated in the most recent large protest.”

So, the jury is still out on the effectiveness of today’s activism, but for the moment, let’s play a little game – let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that no, Millennials can’t even protest correctly.

If that is indeed, the case, it begs the question – why not?

Those who argue most fervently against the effectiveness of young people seem predisposed against the generation – and I imagine they might summon reasons like:

Young people can’t protest correctly because they think social media is all you need.

Young people can’t protest correctly because they are too self-absorbed to see how their actions will impact others.

Or perhaps: Younh people can’t protest correctly because they are so entitled, they protest stupid things without even knowing how good they’ve got it.

But let’s try out another option – if it is indeed the case that young people can’t protest correctly –

Is it possible this is because our parents have failed us?

In Doug McAdam’s Freedom Summer his core argument is that the activism of the 60s and 70s was really launched by the white students who participated in 1964’s Freedom Summer.

In part, these young people were deeply radicalized by the experience – returning to their home states with a critical and politicized view of their lives.

But more practically, these young people were trained by their experience.

The movements of the 60s and 70s – those efforts which today’s elders declare so successful while sneering at the efforts of today’s youth – benefited tremendously and directly from SNCC organizing tactics developed in the 50s.

SNCC trained 1000 young people in their organizing techniques. Those young people used what they learned and became the leaders of the Free Speech Movement, the anti-war movement, the women’s liberation movement, and more.

Perhaps these movements were successful because someone had trained their leaders.

As a somewhat young person now looking back on this history, it seems that yesterday’s young people made a critical mistake –

After their battles were fought and their skirmish won, the thought the war was over.

We’re in a post-racial society. A post-sexist society. All our problems are solved.

There’s no need to train young people as organizers. No need to develop their skills in putting their passion for social justice to practical use.

We solved everything 40 years ago. And we figured it out ourselves.

No.

If indeed today’s young people are terrible protestors, it’s their parents, their mentors, their elders who are at fault.

It is yesterday’s leaders who have failed us. Not today’s.

Celebrating Lisa Brukilacchio tonight at YUM

Posted on April 16, 2015 by Sarah Shugars

Tonight, the fabulous Lisa Brukilacchio will be honored at The Welcome Project’s YUM: A Taste of Immigrant City celebration. Lisa is one of those people who “knows everybody,” as her range of work and passion for the community brings her into many people’s orbits. Tonight she will be recognized with the Suzanne Sankar Founder’s Award, which is given to an outstanding individual or group who has served as a leader in building the collective power of Somerville area immigrants.

From The Welcome Project‘s website:

For over 30 years, Somerville resident Lisa Brukilacchio has worked to support immigrant communities in Somerville. Currently the Director of the Somerville Health Agenda of the Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA), Lisa says her passion for working with immigrants grew out of another love: gardening.

“I had a community garden plot on Tufts property the first summer I lived in Somerville, the summer of 1979, where I first met a lot of “real” people who lived in Somerville,” Lisa said, “Early on, it was mostly Greek and Italian neighbors who would engage with me around growing. Later, when I became more involved in doing outreach for community gardens, I met a couple from El Salvador, who got involved in the team building the garden along the bike path. ”

Through gardening and youth development work, Lisa met Rose Boardman, then director of The Welcome Project.

“I started working with kids from the Mystic Learning Center, including immigrant families who had plots at Mystic and Rose Boardman had me come and do some planting projects.” This work eventually grew into working with Somerville Housing Authority on a landscape training/jobs program for residents. Meanwhile, over near Union Square, the Community Growing Center started up in 1993, where Lisa helped connect others across the city interested in supporting youth development and cultural activities to highlight the many populations making Somerville their home.

“As a volunteer working in the city, I got to meet lots of people. I landed here for school, but when I got engaged with the community, I had an opportunity to interact directly with various communities,” Lisa explained. “There were a lot of young people who thought their only way out was the military. As part of coordinating out of school programs, we would spend time with youth, opening their minds to potential options. Working to provide experiential learning opportunities for youth, I met other community leaders like Franklin Dalembert of the Somerville Haitian Coalition and other members of the Somerville Community Partnerships. We sought to enrich the role of those kids through literally building a stronger, healthier community together through the process of building the Growing Center!”

This work also connected her with many different Somerville populations, including Haitian, Salvadoran, Tibetan, and Indian.

“It was really the commonality of gardens, growing food, and cultural connections to the earth which brought us together,” Lisa added. “A big part of this work, the mission of the Growing Center, is to bring people together in a safe space to share our different cultural traditions. Community gardens have a unique capacity to do that through providing chances for meaningful activity, community engagement and cultural exchange around growing food.”

Lisa brings this focus on immigrant communities to her work in healthcare as well.

“When I first started working In the healthcare field, a large number of the families I worked with were immigrants. Many had come over from Italy, like my own grandmother, some were political refugees and some had grandparents who were slaves in the rural south. I learned a lot from them all,” Lisa said. Later after working for the City of Somerville and for Tufts University, Lisa returned to healthcare at Cambridge Health Alliance.

“CHA comes to health care from a population health and community perspective. I’ve found so many colleagues who are committed to addressing health disparities and an institution that has served vulnerable populations for a long time.”

Lisa added that understanding people’s cultural background is a critical piece of health work.

“We all have different perspectives on what we want our lives to be – how you enjoy life, where you find pride, purpose and meaning. It’s so basic, so integral to a person’s well-being,” Lisa said. “Health care is really about trying to bridge our cultural understandings of wellness.”

The Welcome Project is thrilled to recognize Lisa Brukilacchio with the Suzanne Sankar Founders Award at the 2015 YUM: A Taste of Immigrant City celebration.

Recognizing Franklin Dalembert with the Intercultural City Award

Posted on April 15, 2015 by Sarah Shugars

Tomorrow night at their YUM: A Taste of Immigrant City celebration, The Welcome Project will recognize local leader Franklin Dalembert with the Intercultural City Award. For over a decade Franklin was founding director of the Haitian Coalition of Somerville. As The Welcome Project celebrates its 25th anniversary, Franklin’s story highlights how the City has changed.

From The Welcome Project‘s website:

In 1991 there was one Haitian program in the city: Haiti Vision, a SCAT television show for which Franklin Dalembert served as a producer. Under his remarkable leadership, that show would eventually grow into the Haitian Coalition of Somerville, which incorporated as a non-profit in 1998 and remains a cornerstone of Somerville cultural organizations 17 years later.

“People would come on Haiti Vision and talk about the issues they were facing,” recalled Franklin, who served as founding director of the Haitian Coalition from 1998 until early in 2015. “Young people would come. Parents would come. As we heard all those issues, we started to invite the heads of organizations and city officials to respond and talk to those people.”

These on-air conversation between Haitian residents and city officials eventually led to the creation of the city’s first Haitian Taskforce, created under then Mayor Michael Capuano.

“The taskforce was formed to serve as a bridge between the city and the community,” Franklin explained. “We would meet regularly with Mayor Capuano and others to discuss the issues faced by the Haitian community. One day, Mayor Capuano suggested we should organize as a group – that we should create an advocacy organization and advocate on behalf of the Haitian community.”

That’s how the Haitian Coalition was born.

“Not only did we create that organization, we helped to create a lot of changes,” Franklin said. One of its first steps was calling for help from the Department of Justice.

“The Department of Justice investigated treatment of Haitians at the schools and how Haitians were treated by police. A set of agreements were signed between the Haitian Coalition, the City of Somerville and the Department of Justice.”

One of the recommendations from the DOJ, Franklin said, was to create a Human Rights Commission in Somerville. After the city passed an ordinance creating the commission, Yves-Rose SaintDic, a Haitian leader in the city, served as its first director.

The issues tackled by the Haitian Coalition have shifted over the years. In the early days, the organization primarily focused on building cultural sensitivity towards the Haitian community and making sure these residents access to resources.

“At that time people felt they were not welcome, that nobody understood them,” Franklin said. “There were no people who could speak their language or understood their culture. This created a tension and a lack of understanding. People felt that their voices hadn’t been heard.”
On top of that, immigrants face unique challenges as they acclimate to life in a new part of the world, and at the time there was no one to help them through the transition.

“When I moved to Somerville in 1990,” Franklin said, “I spent a weekend in November in an apartment without heat or electricity because I didn’t know I had to call the gas company. Sometimes people take it for granted that everyone knows that basic info, but we didn’t need heat in Haiti.”

Today, the Haitian Coalition organizes around issues of affordability and gentrification.
“Twenty-five years ago, the work was welcoming immigrants in Somerville. Now we have another challenge – to keep immigrants here,” Franklin said. “People are leaving, they can no longer afford housing costs in Somerville. We have to do something about that. If we lose the immigrant community, we are losing something very important. Immigrants play a vital role in Somerville.”

Throughout it’s history, the Haitian Coalition has partnered closely with The Welcome Project.

“The Welcome Project paved the way for the Haitian Coalition,” Franklin said. “We consider them a sister organization, because we share the same mission. The Welcome Project affects all the immigrant communities, provides a voice for the immigrant community.”

The Welcome Project is thrilled to recognize Franklin Dalembert with the Intercultural City Award at the 2015 YUM: A Taste of Immigrant City celebration.

Waiting for White America

Posted on April 14, 2015 by Sarah Shugars

There’s this great word that has surfaced in recent years: Columbusing.

As defined by Urban Dictionary, Columbusing is “when white people claim they have invented/discovered something that has been around for years, decades, even centuries.”

I’ve mostly heard the phrase applied to elements of cultural identity. White people have Columbused jazz, blues, Motown and rap.

White people have Columbused cornrows. twerking, The Harlem Shake, and even empanadas – I mean, hand pies. It seems there is no end to the list of items that have been Columbused.

And if cultural appropriation wasn’t enough, I’ve been reflecting on another element of Columbusing – outrage over injustice.

In reading Doug McAdam’s Freedom Summer, I’ve been struck by the extent to which the whole summer was orchestrated by SNCC not only as a wake up call to white America, but as a mechanism for giving white America a stake in the fight.

In more generous terms, one could argue that in any social movement a small group of people tries to bring their message to a large group of people. But let’s be real: in this case the “small group of people” was a large number of southern blacks who had been organizing for over a decade and the “large group of people” was an elite group of white northerners who considered themselves liberal.

When these elite, white students descended on Mississippi for the summer, they were shocked by the reality they found there. They were shocked by the physical abuse, the emotional harassment, and the downright disregard for the law. Their parents were shocked by the letters home. The media was shocked at the experience of these white kids.

After over a decade of black organizing, white Americans came to Mississippi and discovered our country had a race problem. They Columbused the hell out of that shit.

That was in 1964. The dawn of the civil rights movement.

Of course it dawned long before that, but for white America, 1964 was watershed.I find this particularly interesting now, given the social context we find ourselves in.

With black deaths nightly on the television, white America is again starting to realize there might be something to this discrimination issue.

I’ve seen so many articles about what white America should do, how to talk to white Americans about race, why white Americans shut down when issues are raised.

White Americans should be a part of the conversation, of course, just as all people should be part of the conversation. As someone who is white myself, it probably makes a lot of sense for me personally to talk to other white Americans, to help them join this conversation.

But – I just can’t shake the feeling that we’re a nation just waiting for the majority of white America to Columbus social justice. Because once white Americans Columbus social justice, then we can have a real conversation, then we can have real change.

And that’s kind of messed up.

White people need to lead the change because white people are the ones with the most power. But what we really need to do is to shift power structures – to change who has the right to voice a concern and who is listened to when they speak.

I don’t know how we do that. I don’t know how I do that – as a white girl who is almost certainly Columbusing this idea from somewhere. But let’s work on that.

Let’s bring everyone into the conversation, yes, let’s make everyone part of the change.

But let’s not wait for the majority of white Americans to discover we have a racial problem before we do anything about it.

The change should have come decades ago.

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