Listening to Lucy: Why I’m Involved in Diversity Work

I’ve been engaged in the conversation on racial equity and justice in our nation, especially our schools, for more than three decades now. When I read Jenna and Elizabeth’s “‘Calling In‘ White Male Colleagues” piece about the distance to which white male educators go to avoid or resist conversations related to race, it made me pause. If a high percentage of white men resist the work, why did I engage in the conversation back in the late 1980s and why have I stayed involved?

The truth is, I’m inclined to steer clear of conversations that challenge my sense of self. I also hate being embarrassed by any lack of knowledge — and there’s plenty to be embarrassed about when you are a white man who is asked to acknowledge his privileged background. In many ways, I think I fit the profile of those who would resist engagement in a workshop on antiracist education, especially if asked to share my personal experiences and professional challenges.

I think the reason I did get involved lies in a series of circumstances and experiences. While I was plenty privileged in my adolescence (my father was a lawyer), I had some experience with being marginalized in school, given my dyslexia. Maybe because of this marginalization, I became friends with a few of the students of color in my elementary school. This was enough to offer me early hints of the racial complexity in the school and society. But in time, I mostly hung out with white people. In time, I’m sure I came to see whiteness as the norm, even if I couldn’t phrase it that way, or explain why this was the case. I was pretty comfortable with it all, too.

Things changed for me in the 1980s, when my closest friend started a school in Providence, R.I. for what were then described as “at-risk students.” Seeing the students, learning more about their lives and why they found themselves at a last-chance school, I began to think more deeply about issues of race. I stayed close to this friend, in part, because he had broken his neck in college and had to live out his life as a quadriplegic. As difficult as his personal circumstances were, he still found it in him to stay fully engaged in life. And it amazed me to no end that he took on the immense challenged of starting an independent public school for children the mainstream system didn’t serve well and didn’t particularly care about. His focus was on disrupting what is now commonly described as the school-to-prison pipeline — though I would describe it as bringing justice to unjust system. For the school, every step of the way was a struggle of enormous proportions, but, in time, it found its footing and proved to be an important success.

A few years after the school’s founding, my friend asked if I’d be willing to write a book about the school — especially on why it’s so difficult to offer an alternative to public education that serves children from families with no political clout. He’d write it himself, he said, but he was already overextended by the work. At the time, I was at a loss about the direction of my writing career, such as it was, so I thought this would be a good opportunity. I also hoped it would help my friend and his school. I said yes.

So began my engagement in the conversation on racial inequities and injustices in our society, especially how they play out in school. The book came out a few years later. By then, I was working for an education association, where, among other things, I served on a diversity planning team to help the organization address internal racial matters while also encouraging the broader community of schools to develop greater racial awareness. This work wasn’t my only focus. But I was happy that it was part of my professional life. By that point, I had come to see the field of education as one of our major cultural battlefields — and it seemed right to stay involved in conversations that, I hoped, would lead to a more just society.

All of this suggests that I’ve engaged in racial justice work without hesitation or without stumbling or embarrassing myself. But the truth is I’ve stumbled and I’ve been embarrassment more times than I care to admit. I still struggle at times to understand the broad, continuing impact of whiteness as our cultural norm. I don’t always have answers or know what to say to white people who challenge me — especially people who get loud and wonder why we “always have to talk about race.” And I like having time in the day when I just feel comfortable in my own skin.

But if you ask what keeps me going, I would start with my friend. His bravery in facing a world of resistance each day has been a constant reminder for me to stay engaged. I would also point to my Jesuit education (high school and college) where I was taught the importance of personal and intellectual engagement in creating a moral and just world, however we might see it. I would also point to all the amazing educators I’ve met over the years who see the work as a true calling. Finally, I would say that my engagement with people of color over the years has just made my life more interesting, more joyful, and fuller somehow — and I want this kind of world for my children.

To read the news these days is to know that the wish to stay cocooned in whiteness is alive and well, in both men and women. But when it comes to white folks who step out of the cultural river to push for change, the efforts are mostly made by white women, especially in the field of education. I’m not a psychologist and I don’t pretend to understand the mindset of all white men. But, sadly, it doesn’t surprise me that white men would stay distant or resist the call to engage. It strikes me as a shared male challenge — for many, but not all — of allowing oneself to be open to ideas, particularly those that ask for deep self-reflection, that ask us to rethink how to be a moral adult in a diverse democratic society. It asks us to be vulnerable and to see ourselves more deeply and clearly. It asks us not to think only about ourselves. It asks us to see America as more than a place of competition for cultural swag, to understand that success is not really success if it happens in a racially unjust society.

In truth, even knowing that to be white and silent on matters of racial injustice is to be complicit, I admit that I still hesitate to engage in group conversations. It’s ingrained in me that, to be a man in America, is to keep my cards close — to not share my thoughts and feelings, especially if they might expose my shortcomings or, worse, my lack of knowledge. I think, more than anything, I try to avoid feeling embarrassed. In a room of people talking about difficult stuff, I get self-protective. But I’m working on this. 

We are all creatures of time and place. We are shaped by our cultures. And one of the complexities of living as a white person in America today is to understand, regardless of how challenging our own lives may be, that we have benefitted from the suppression of people of color. The degree varies per person, of course. And there are millions of white people who suffer economically and in other ways. I don’t want to make light of those challenges or say they don’t matter. But the statistical evidence of racial injustice and inequity is everywhere — and it has been holding steady for decades. The personal stories of injustice are also widely available. The goal of antiracist workshops and conferences is simply to make this troubling point explicit and to engage all of us in understanding why this is so, how we contribute to the problem, and how we can work together to reshape our fields of work and the nation so it truly lives up to its democratic principles. It’s a “calling in” to work for a clear and obvious good.

Every antiracist workshop starts with the understanding that racial injustice, systemic racial inequities, and cultural racism are alive today in our society. If we’re white, it can take some deep, conscious reflection to see it clearly. If we are white and male, there is an added layer of resistance that can keep us on the sidelines — in effect, enabling racism and its effects. I encourage you to take deep breaths, listen, temper the amygdala’s fight-flight-freeze response, be willing to discuss your racial and gendered experience, do the necessary reading, take action that leads to change, and stay on the pathway.

There’s a poignant Peanuts cartoon in which Charlie Brown is looking down at the ground woefully as Lucy screams with deep frustration, “Why do things always have to be so complicated?” I think a lot of us white men are like Charlie Brown. We really would like to turn and run from such outbursts. But, in this case, we need to stay, listen, engage. Racial matters are complicated. But the call for a just society needs us to do our part in reshaping our culture.

Michael Brosnan is the Senior Editor at Teaching While White. He is also a poet. More at www.michaelabrosnan.com.

White Men Respond — Additional Reading

·       White Men Respond, by TWW Staff

·       Understanding the Atmospheric Nature of White Supremacy and Patriarchy, by Nick Hiebert

·       Manning Up? An Open Letter, by Ryan Virden

·       Learning to See Clearly, by Ayres Stiles-Hall

·       Planting the Seeds of Self-Reflection, by Maurice Werner