My Beloved Community
I made the following 5-minute public comment at my local Hanover County (VA) Board of Supervisors’ meeting on Wednesday, January 12, 2022. I wanted to share it here in honor of the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday this year. Here’s a video of me delivering this public comment (I’m at the 57:15 min mark.) Context: The Board of Supervisors appoints school board members in my county. The school board voted in November to not follow a state law that requires them to adopt inclusive policies for transgender school children. I have a transgender son who attends Hanover County Public Schools. I want to speak regarding the board’s upcoming school board appointments and for the general social environment of our Hanover County community. With the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday coming up, I thought it might be a good time to share with you something new I learned about Martin Luther King just 3 years ago from Rev. Janie Walker. She gave the MLK day keynote address at Randolph Macon College that year. She said that King believed in the concept of a “beloved community,” that to himself he wasn’t primarily a civil rights activist, but he became known as a civil rights activist as a byproduct of his belief in the “beloved community.” That’s how he identified himself centrally, as a Christian believer in the beloved community vision. Did you all know this? I didn’t know this. Learning it helped me to frame my own vision for the type of community I want to live in. The Beloved Community is a community where every single member of the community is valued for who they are. That each person has unique gifts to give their community and in a beloved community they are free to contribute their gifts to serve their community. Barriers are removed. A Beloved community is one in which everyone is cared for, absent of poverty, hunger, and hate. Can you imagine living in such a place? Where the work of managing our community is shared more evenly, where the best of citizens is on full display? King gloried in this vision and he believed it was possible, if only we could remove the barriers that keep people from giving the best of themselves to their communities. That’s how he arrived as his activism. I want to linger here for a moment. ALL people are valuable. No exceptions. NONE. Not for skin color, income level, religion, education level, gender, sexual orientation, disabilities —- gender identity. EVERY SINGLE LAST ONE of us is valuable exactly as we are. We don’t need to act more like someone else, we simply need to be allowed to be the best versions of ourselves. Be free to develop our gifts, and be free to give our gifts. In the context of Christianity, this is the idea of Devine Spark, that there’s a piece of the divine in every one of us. To cast aside any of us is to cast aside the divine. Sometimes I feel undervalued because I am a woman, put in my place, expected to give free labor. Some of you might know what that’s like. I think there’s a little part of many of us that feels undervalued to some level. Who among us hasn’t had the experience of feeling like the outsider? Underestimated, limited, kept down? We live in a greater society that is structured around social hierarchies, so chances are many of you have felt this feeling too. Maybe you’re not rich enough, or philanthropic enough, or you or your kids didn’t go to a good enough college. Imagine being even more socially disadvantaged in Hanover, of being in poverty, disabled, being Brown or Black — being LGBT. Or any combination of these. What brings me here today is that I am begging Hanover to provide policies, appointments, and priorities that allow each citizen of Hanover to feel valued and be allowed to develop and give their gifts to our community. I beg you to see each one of us as a valuable contributor. See ALL of us as counting as humans. What would you do differently if you knew that my child would one day be able to change the world for the better, if only you would support policies that nurture and support him? Do that.
Belonging is the new DEI Concept
When my kids were in preschool, my oldest was given some homework, flashcards to prepare him to begin school the next year. Upon a closer look, I saw that it was a lesson in how to determine who doesn’t belong. A lesson, I wanted to unteach them. In the 1990s my colleagues and I used to call ourselves “diversity educators,” but the term to capture our work has evolved through the years. Eventually the goal of “diversity” with a concern for representation, felt like too low of a bar. Social spaces that were stratified, segregated, or that valued assimilation or tokenization would all technically be “diverse.” Something was missing. “DEI educator” is the preferred term now that more fully incorporates diversity, equity, and inclusion. A vision of “inclusion” brings to mind people of diverse social identities (race/ethnicity, gender identities, sexual orientations, religions, abilities, and so on) all working and living side by side with equal levels of contribution and value to their shared community. “Equity” is the quantitative perspective of inclusion, with a goal of measurably equivalent outcomes. Imagine what social changes would have to occur for social demographics to not statistically predict any of these outcomes: imprisonment, income, educational attainment, and killed by police. All of those outcomes are currently not equitable. In Ibram Kendi’s How to Be An Antiracist, he reminds us that social inequities along these lines are all results of racist policies, and to believe that they are a result of a group’s inferiority is a racist idea. “Belonging” is the new term on the DEI block. Headlines place its emergence in 2019 to 2020. The concept of belonging in DEI work originally comes from special education scholars, like Eric Carter of Vanderbilt, who know that inclusion cannot be achieved until belonging matters. Carter says “Where we once pursued integration, we now talk about promoting inclusion. But my sense is that both terms fall short of what really matters most. People want to be more than merely integrated or included. They want to experience true belonging. But belonging is a hard concept to define. We quickly feel its absence, but describing it’s presence can be much more challenging.” Belonging is the qualitative perspective on inclusion. So, Carter’s research focused on defining the quality of belonging. He identified 10 themes related to the feeling of belonging. We feel that we belong when we feel: loved, present, invited, welcomed, known, accepted, supported, cared for, befriended, and needed. Brene Brown reminds us that belonging is not the same as fitting in, its rather the opposite. She says “’Fitting in’ is becoming who you think you need to be in order to be accepted. ‘Belonging’ is being your authentic self and knowing that no matter what happens, you belong to you. … Belonging doesn’t require us to change who we are; it requires us to BE who we are.” Think for a moment of a time and place where you felt you belonged. Chances are this is a difficult image for many of us to conjure regardless of our social identities. Daniel Buford and colleagues at the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, identified perfectionism as a cultural value that permeates many White-dominant cultures, including the USA. The message of “imperfection does not belong here” is often conveyed in our home, work, and community lives. In these spaces when the imperfections of our humanity are revealed, messages of our belonging disappear. And so we strive. Striving for perfection leaves us all feeling short, left out, and lacking belonging. Creating belonging organizations, communities, and society will benefit us all. Imagine now, who you extend a belonging sentiment toward? List five people in your work and community spaces who you’ve made a special effort to welcome, love, and include? In terms of social demographics, are they more like you than not? For many they are, and this is why it’s so important to include belonging in DEI work. We cannot be representationally diverse, in equitable ways, if we only reinforce who is already here with our belonging gestures. There’s another reason. When I saw my kid’s preschool flash cards, I instantly knew that they were being taught a false lesson that was already deep inside me – one that I was working hard to shake. The flashcards consisted of a deck of 50 cards or so, all with four photographs on them, each with the same question, “What Doesn’t Belong?” I’ve included samples here. “What doesn’t belong?” Of course, preschoolers should learn the skill of distinction and categorization. Of course. But that’s not what these cards were teaching. Look closer. A foundational psychology concept posits that we all form self-images by evaluating ourselves as compared to others. This social comparison is a human process, we all do it. How else would we know anything about ourselves? I am tall (compared to others), I am musical (compared to others), I am talented (compared to others) — are all examples of self-image formation via social comparison. As you can imagine, examples go on to include our socio-cultural identities as well. I am a woman; I am White; I am American. There are two types of social comparisons: same/different and superior/inferior. We subconsciously ask ourselves when meeting new people Am I the same or different from you? and also Am I superior or inferior to you? So, while we are asking ourselves whether we are attractive or ugly, successful or a failure, intelligent or stupid, we also decide if the differences we see are good or bad. We have a tendency to extend this judgment beyond our own worthiness, but onto others’ as well. I am better than you? Our culture teaches us to conflate same with superior and different with inferior. Heck, preschool flashcards teach us they are the synonyms. The flashcards said “What doesn’t belong?” when what they meant was “Which one is different?” As if things that are different, don’t belong? I’m certain I had flashcards and worksheets like this as
White People, Listen
Not to me. I don’t have any leadership to offer in this moment. White friends, it’s time to listen. It has been for quite some time. As a matter of context: Just in the last few weeks these things happened…Ahmaud Aubrey in Georgia, Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Chris Cooper in NYC, and George Floyd in Minneapolis, not to mention the thousands (yes, thousands) before them. Last night protests erupted in multiple cities across the nation, including the second night of rebellions in my nearby city of Richmond, Virginia (I’m writing this 5/31/2020). Thus far I’ve read two interpretations of the vandalism that are likely both true: “No justice, no peace” and “White instigators did it.” It’s a lot. All at once. My texts, social media feeds, and shoot even my own family are blowing up my phone with White people wondering what they should think and what they can do. “Should I go to a protest?” “What do I tell my kids?” “What should we do about this?” “But the vandalism!” “Aren’t there better strategies than destruction?” You want to know what White people can do? Listen, I’ve got just the answer. No, really, the answer is to listen. I know, I know. You want to *do* something. I hear you, but seriously, listen first. Listen to Black leaders. Believe them. Follow them. And tuck yourself under their leadership. Allow yourself to be led by Black people. Black leaders have been trying to guide us through racial healing, like forever. For all the outrage that Black people are legitimately entitled to have, overwhelmingly most want peace. They want to claim their humanity and realize equity, though sometimes I think we’d be better off with the scales tilted even more in their favor than mere equity. Here’s why. The lie that some people are worthy humans and others are not holds us all down. ALL of us. Don’t you have a story of feeling like you aren’t good enough. That the standard for a successful human is too narrow? Haven’t you ever felt closed out of something? That the deck is stacked against you? I sure have. Do you know who are socio-historically among the most experienced people on the planet with dealing with marginalization? And then on top of that are brilliant creators and resilient AF? Black Americans. If you seek a society where you are good enough just as you are, seek Black leadership. For the good of all of us. The lie of White supremacy is loud. Sometimes it’s all you can hear. If you think there isn’t Black leadership right now, you’ll need to listen closer. They are here, nationally and in your communities. Most are not in traditional positions of power. They are self-determined, creative entrepreneurs, artists, scholars, journalists, experienced activists, and social media masters. They have not been waiting to be appointed to a position. Leaders don’t wait. White people, as you form opinions about race issues or form an action plan on what to do about it ask yourself these questions: • Have I identified Black leaders who I admire and strive to follow? • Do I follow Black leaders on social media? • Do I know who my local Black activists are? • Are Black activists creating a plan? Do they think there’s a place for me in that plan? • Do Black educators have advice for how to talk to my kids? • Have I learned what Black experts think about the issues? Can I name some Black scholars? • Can I challenge myself to fall inline under Black leadership that I admire and not try to steer it myself? • Am I in a position to promote Black leadership? Either in terms of their position or visibility? No, I’m not saying any Black leader will do. That’s not what I’m saying. Not every Black leader aims to provide socio-historically informed system-changing leadership that we need so desperately. Some are trapped in a system that doesn’t want that voice to be heard. And for some, the lie of White supremacy is still too loud. The more you listen, the more you’ll be able to tell. And of course, there is no singular Black voice. There will be contradictions. You will hear “White people sit down, we don’t need you” and also “White people your silence is compliance!” Listen to these messages. Collect them. They are all valid. Don’t form your opinions and plans by talking just to White people, even if they are also anti-racists. Don’t seek the leadership of White people in this moment. Now (and every moment) is the time to follow Black leadership.