Due to construction on campus, I and many of my colleagues have been working out of a dorm for the summer. As tomorrow is our last day in beautiful Wren Hall, it seemed only fitting that I share a few words of love for this building which has become my work home.

O, Wren Hall –

Shall I compare thee to a dormitory?Thou aren’t more lovely, tho more temperate.
Thy vistic views, trees with vodka bottle perch’d –
Thy distinctive smell and enchanting stains
Will stay fore’er in my heart – ’til I depart.
Colleagues gathered together as friends,
Lounging on couches before the day ends.
Intriguing signs made the grey walls more fun –
I’m in despair that our time here is done!

Thank you for having us, Wren Hall!

In just fifteen days I will leave my job of seven and half years. In just over a month, I will matriculate as a Ph.D. student at Northeastern.

While I made these plans some time ago – starting the application process last fall and giving my notice in March – it’s just now starting to sink in as a real thing that’s happening.

I’ve made transition plans, I’m wrapping up projects. I’ve registered for courses, I’m looking for some sweet Lisa Franks.

Time is flying by.

It’s been over ten years since I was last a full time student; I hardly know what to expect.

I suspect it will be hard and challenging at times – if not, I’m probably doing it wrong. True learning is a worthy challenge.

I hope I’ll find my age an advantage – I’ve seen enough that I find little to panic about any more.

I think back on what I’d wish I’d known as an undergraduate – how to advocate for myself, how to find my own way, how to navigate the world that is academia. Those are skills I’ve learned since graduating, and they’re skill I’ll need in the coming years.

Most of all, I feel incredibly privileged.

I get to spend the next five (+?) years studying and learning. I get to spend the next five years growing and exploring and challenging myself. I’m sure some of it will be overwhelming and some of it will be mundane, but man, what an amazing opportunity.

When I was deciding whether to even apply to this program I found myself explaining – this is what I’d do if I won the lottery.

This is what I’d do if I won the lottery – and, while I didn’t win the lottery, I get to do it!

Compromise is often considered to be a good thing – just as we are taught to share toys as kids, we are also taught to share solutions.

If we can’t both get what we want, then reasonable adults will find a compromise – each getting a little of what they want while ceding some ground.

That might be all well and good if we’re debating something relatively trivial, but what about when it comes to issues of justice?

Then the best course is not so clear – if a full victory is beyond our reach perhaps a step towards justice is better than the status quo. Or, perhaps, a step towards justice will simply mollify the moderates, who will no longer feel the need to fight for more robust reform. On the other hand, refusing to compromise may earn you enemies – alienating moderates who might otherwise be willing to support your cause.

These are complex, strategic questions which every movement and activist must evaluate and consider.

Importantly, a wiliness to compromise for the good of the movement should not be confused with an instinctual response of conflict-avoidance.

Compromise can be good, but it should be a strategic choice – not a convenient dodge.

When debating such matters for myself, I’m reminded of the words of Charles Mackay in his poem No Enemies:

You have no enemies, you say?    
Alas! my friend, the boast is poor;    
He who has mingled in the fray    
Of duty, that the brave endure,    
Must have made foes! If you have none,
Small is the work that you have done.    
You’ve hit no traitor on the hip,    
You’ve dashed no cup from perjured lip,    
You’ve never turned the wrong to right,    
You’ve been a coward in the fight.

I don’t know what to write today. I’ve been looking for inspiration. I’ve been hoping for the mundane.

But every time my mind starts to wander, all I can think is: My father would have been 73 today. 73 if it hadn’t been for that cancerous mass in his esophagus that metastasized throughout his throat and lungs before it was even discovered. My father would have been 73.

He passed away over three years ago, and you would think that would make such an ominous anniversary less troublesome. But each year it’s merely – different.

I’ve been writing every day for over two years,  meaning that two of my father’s birthdays and two of his deathdays have passed in that time. And every time such a date rolls around I think to myself: I should write about my father.

And then I think: I’m not ready yet.

Not that I haven’t written about my father at all – he and his sayings have made a few cameos on this blog. But I haven’t paid him homage, as I have for my grandmother or for others whom I’ve lost since I began blogging.

I haven’t praised his strengths or made light of his failings. I haven’t shared his stories or described his many personas. I haven’t found those moments of joy and sorrow which perfectly capture what I want to say. I haven’t written that post, though I want to someday.

But, I think, not today.

These things take time.

People are too complicated, relationships too complex. A series of black and white shapes hardly does a whole person justice. Words hardly seem enough.

I’ll not reduce him to a two-dimensional representation. I’ll not pretend there was nothing but good times. Life is hard and complicated and messy and beautiful, and it seems a disservice to remember any life as less than that.

So I don’t know what to write. No, not today.

Maybe next year.

In the wake of the murders in Charleston, in the wake of the constant news of black and brown people dying at that hand of whites, I’ve been surrounded by calls for white people to get engaged in the work.

People of color have been engaged in the work forever. In a fight for their very survival, they have led the work for change and for justice. But its not their job to fix society on their own. White people need to step up and do the work with them.

I was reading one particular essay yesterday, colorfully addressed “To My Fellow Whiteys,” which strongly argued that its long past time for white Americans to get up and get to work. Well, that’s great, except –

I kept scrolling down to figure out what “the work” is. I feel like –

I am ready to get to work, but just what is it I’m supposed to do?

I read lots of lists with titles like “how to be a better ally” or “actions for social justice.” And they almost always leave me feeling flat. I want action, I want change. Advice which basically boils down to “try not to be an a-hole” doesn’t do it for me.

I mean, it’s good advice, but its not enough.

And that, I think, is one of the biggest challenges.

We’ve come to think of social change as something that happens through large movements and policy change.

We know how to get a racist flag taken down.

That is good work, but the work is much more than that. There is so much more work to be done.

Really confronting systemic racism in this country will take more than policy change. There is plenty of policy which could stand to be changed – but that is a symptom, not the disease.

So just what is “the work” that we ought to engage in? Just what is this work that we have to engage in?

It is smaller, it is ordinary. And that’s just what makes it so extraordinary.

The work is about each of us, as individuals. Each trying to be a little better tomorrow than we were today. Each trying to understand each other a little better tomorrow, to appreciate each other a little better tomorrow.

That’s not to say we can simply put large scale change or policy actions aside, but the real work, the hard, gritty, difficult work is improving yourself.

I read an article not long ago where a woman of color reflected on being cut in line by a white woman at an airport baggage check. The woman later apologized, saying “I’m sorry if I cut you earlier. I didn’t see you standing there.”

As author Brit Bennett described, “I spent a four hour flight trying not to wonder about the white woman’s intentions. But why would she think about mine? She didn’t even see me.”

I was struck by that story. That could have been me.

I could have done it thoughtlessly, with no racist intentions or motives. It would have been easy for me. And it would have caused another person anguish.
Regardless of our intentions, that’s not always how our actions are perceived. I imagine that some might argue that the woman who got cut off should simply get over it. That being cut off in an airport is no big deal and you should just forget about it and move on with your life.Well, that’s easy to say when you know the motives weren’t personal.I don’t know what it’s like to be black in America, but I do know what it’s like to not know whether the guy smiling at you is trying to be neighborly or hoping to cop a feel. I know what it’s like to have men talk over you or reject your opinion and not know whether its because you actually weren’t saying anything of value or if its because you’re a woman.It’s exhausting. And for people of color, the microagressions they experience throughout the day can be traumatizing.Getting cut off in an airport once is no big deal. Being discriminated against and oppressed during every hour of every day is.As white people, we have a responsibility, not just to “get to work,” but to understand and appreciate everyone who cohabits this world with us.We have a responsibility to learn, to listen, to do our best to understand another’s experience, to accept their experience as valid even if it conflicts with our own way of experiencing the world. We have a responsibility to educate ourselves and to educate each other. And, above all, at the core of the work – we have a responsibility to be a little better tomorrow than we were today.