Two years ago my wife and I decided to move from Oklahoma to El Dorado Arkansas teach in predominantly African-American public schools, mostly as a change in scenery. We left a high poverty school in Oklahoma where we had been successful for nearly twenty years and our assumption was serving children in similar socio-economic conditions would be rewarding in one place as another so off we went. Within five weeks we had resigned. We were in no way prepared for the breadth of systemic racism we would encounter. Without going into the lurid details, it was evident that the future for the majority of our students were headed for was bleak. It launched us both into a pretty severe depression and we ran back home where the reality African-Americans face was removed from daily view and we could go back to living our comfortable white existence.
Having experienced first hand the scope of challenges young children of color in our country face (and by no means probably the worst) you would think I would be more cautious in assumptions about what protesters are asking for their demands that police departments to be de-funded. I immediately went through my mental Rolodex of every officer I personally know and became dismissive of the demands. While scrolling through YouTube this morning I decided to watch “Last Week Tonight” his episode on Policing failures was powerful and motivating. It reminded me of those kids in El Dorado and how I felt like a huge failure for being unable to even handle bearing witness to the facts of their lives and how powerless I was to do anything about it. I was so wrong about this and I hope I can do better.