I’m white, and grew up in suburban Mesa, Arizona. A few years ago, I read an article in Forbes magazine that named Mesa the most conservative city in the United States. At the time I read the article, I was the principal at an arts-focused high school in the city of San Francisco, the city which that same Forbes article declared as the most liberal U.S. city in the country. Certainly, the distance between these two places in my life was much further than the 769 miles indicated on Google Maps. As a child, I had attended schools whose students were predominately white, and almost all of my closest friends had been white as well. As an adult educator and administrator, I found myself leading a school where nearly 100% of students were either African American or Hispanic.
By the time I graduated from high school, I still did not have much of an equity discourse or an awareness of the racial disparities that exist in our country. Of course I had taken classes at school that touched on matters of race, poverty, inequality, and discrimination. Yet these issues primarily existed for me in a historical, academic space, very distant from my day to day interests and interactions. I simply didn’t have the life experience to put things in their proper context.
When I turned 19, I left Arizona for South America on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. For the next two years of my life, I lived amongst the Spanish speaking citizenry of one of the poorest regions of Argentina. The initial drive from the small regional airport to my apartment in the northeastern province of Chaco made it clear that I was about to confront an entirely different world. As I struggled to learn Spanish and adjust to new foods and customs, an even deeper struggle was happening internally, where I was trying to make sense of the poverty that surrounded me on every side. It was unlike anything I had seen or experienced in my life. I quickly began to realize that the world was much, much bigger than Mesa, Arizona, and that the world was filled with a diversity of people and perspectives that I would no longer be able to ignore. It was such a humbling experience for me, in fact, that I found myself asking a lot more questions and listening more intently to the ideas and experiences of others. I fell in love with a country, a language, and a people that were not my own.
When I returned home, I attended Arizona State University and changed majors to secondary education and Spanish. One of my first classes was a course called “Culture & Schooling,” perhaps my first real dive into the racial implications of public schooling in our country. In one of the first lectures to our class, the professor asked students about whether they had personally experienced discrimination. The first student to raise her hand told a story about how her trips to the grocery store typically involved being followed by a store employee who watched her shop, assuming that the brown color of her skin made her more likely to shoplift. To be honest, I was a little confused as I had never had an experience like this myself. Perhaps the professor sensed the incredulity of some members of our class, so he asked more broadly. “How many of you are typically followed by a store employee when you go grocery shopping?” Dozens more hands went up. Again, I listened and learned, recognizing that my own background and perspectives represented a small fraction of the lived experience of those around me.
I have had countless moments like these over the past 20 years, too many to name, when my own ignorance or lack of personal experience has been enlightened by the courageous sharing and advocacy on the part of colleagues of color. I am deeply indebted to these colleagues, from Mr. Love in Boston to Dr. D in San Francisco, to many others in the places I have lived and worked, for their lessons in leadership and solidarity with communities of color that inform my actions every single day. I fully recognize how my position of privilege allows this tutoring to occur in the relative safety of a classroom or a private conversation. But, at the very least – and it really isn’t much to ask – it started by being willing to listen. I’ve had to shut up long enough to seriously consider the perspectives and experiences of those with very personal knowledge about racism and discrimination – a knowledge which has come to them at a very high cost indeed.
Throughout my life I have been a practicing member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. One of the distinguishing features of our church services is a monthly worship service we refer to as a “testimony meeting.” These are meetings set aside for members of the congregation to come to the pulpit to publicly witness of their spiritual convictions and experiences. “Bearing testimony” is common language amongst church members, referring to this simple yet deeply personal practice of sharing what is in our hearts. Bearing testimony requires a willingness to be vulnerable with others. In essence, it is an act of putting ourselves and our experiences “out there” for broader consideration. We can only hope that those who hear us will be thoughtful and respectful in their reactions to what we have to say.
How long will it take for white America to listen when our black and brown brothers and sisters bear testimony of their lived experiences? How many “driving while black” or “jogging while black” or “trying to open the front door to my own home while black” stories have to be told before we will listen. Even more importantly, how many more of these stories must be told in order for us to change our belief systems or demand change in our society? Admittedly, my own values in this regard have been changed and shaped over many years, and I am still far from the warrior for equity that I know I must be. Yet imperfect though I may be, I can say without question that any progress in my journey has been dependent upon my willingness to listen when someone is bearing testimony to the impact of racism in his or her life. When those stories come, don’t block out the message, and don’t turn away. Turn to listen and let the power of their testimony stay with you.