Martin Luther King’s influence on me as a teacher

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From the Southern Poverty Law Center, Teaching Tolerance: On April 4,  2018 we will observe the 50th anniversary of Dr. King's assassination. As we approach this milestone, we'd like to know how his life influenced you and your teaching. Tell us what Dr. King's legacy means to you.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy can be seen at every positive turning point in our nation over the last year.

The thousands of courageous young people standing up today and demanding safer American schools reveals the brand of energy and organization Dr. King displayed during the Civil Rights Movement. By refusing to cave to the NRA and ridiculous critics, Parkland High School students have drawn awareness to our longstanding national failure on gun policy in the United States. These inspiring activists have a vision for our nation that their older counterparts gave up on after political inaction following the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012. The creativity and passion modeled by these young activists is motivating people young and old to take action. It is refreshing and there’s no doubt that Dr. King would be proud.

Art work by Eric Patrick Kelly, a friend of my brother. 
We all grew up in Ionia, Michigan together. Eric created 
this marker drawing on MLK Day. He said, "I drew his fist 
a lot larger than the photo - for some reason I imagined 
him shaking it at the current administration.”

   

   We have also witnessed Dr. King’s lessons about standing up to injustice as teachers continue calling people to action to improve education for the millions of children left behind in American schools. First in Detroit, then West Virginia and now in Oklahoma teachers continue to organize on behalf of students who face poor learning conditions and inadequate funding. Just as Dr. King spoke out against awful policies that harmed the poor, American teachers have led the fight for equity by speaking out against inept leadership and dreadful education policies plaguing our children.

   And we also feel King’s legacy in the tears of parents crying out when their black and brown children are gunned down by police in American streets. When we call out injustice and seek to understand the legacy of the darkest parts of our history (slavery, lynching, Jim Crow, etc.) and how those truths connect to our problems today, we honor Dr. King and American heroes who continue to shine a light on the truth.

From Ferguson to Charlottesville and every stop in between and after, Martin Luther King, Jr. marches with us today just as he did in Selma, Birmingham and Washington, DC.

Our March Continues at Rallies, on Twitter and in Classrooms

We see the resemblance of Dr. King in our new leaders as they inspire us and hold us accountable for who we are and who we aspire to be as a nation.

Young activists have taken to Twitter to organize and they use Instagram to influence the hearts and minds of followers. They are using the same social media tools that have helped divide our country and flipped the script. American corporations whose advertising supported hateful commentary have been called out through social media channels and have since chosen to change course. Social media helps people mobilize to action as town hall meetings, walkouts and rallies are planned on a global scale.     

I try to channel King's remarkable persistence when we tackle topics like privilege and bigotry in our classroom. Dr. King’s ability to nudge, pull and prod people away from the comfort of their own indifference remains his legacy for thousands of teachers coast to coast.

My teaching philosophy and my ability to keep my own light shining is inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr. He taught a nation how to come together and take action and make the positive change we desire. I make it a priority to do my best to help students find their own meaning and appreciation for diversity and equality. We read, we watch, we listen, we discuss and we try to understand what is happening in our world by digging deeper. I try my best to emulate Dr. King’s intentional and honest approach in my own efforts to eliminate prejudice from my heart and the world.

Dr. King had the capacity to convince people that indifference toward oppression was part of our American DNA and he also showed us that it doesn’t have to remain that way. He was uniquely qualified to help hundreds of thousands of people understand why we needed to change by articulating and devising strategies that revealed a real-life honest account of America’s failures that could no longer be denied. Simultaneously, King showed a nation how to change as he skillfully unified people from every race, creed and background in a fight for equality, love and justice.

Whether we look to the Black Lives Matter movement, the Me Too movement or the Parkland students demanding change, we see Dr. King’s blueprint that requires we use the tools at our disposal to make the truth inescapable to the masses. Sometimes that involves video and the use of social media to shine a light on realities that only some people know first-hand. King was no stranger to the fact that it is messy and difficult to open people’s eyes to ugly truths that require collective action to address. He was a master at helping people dig deeper into the weighty issues of prejudice, poverty and policy. These topics still deserve the attention and commitment of every educator, spanning every single school in America.

We want our students to feel the gravity of our greatest challenges today just as Dr. King taught us more than fifty years ago. He reminded us there is incredible value in recognizing and facing the the complexity and nuances of racism. Standing up for what is right and fighting for causes that advance progress will always be a part of who we are as Americans. That is his legacy and we should try to honor that legacy in our classrooms and beyond. Dr. King had the persistence and patience to teach us to never give up on people who seem, at the moment, unwilling to confront their own intolerance.

Building Our Empathy Muscles

Dr. King taught an entire generation the value of empathy and in classrooms across the nation we continue to honor him with meaningful conversations about American history and our responsibility to keep striving to do better. We build our empathy muscles every time we try to walk in the shoes of others and there’s no better leader to guide us than Martin Luther King, Jr.

As an educator, I try to confront my own biases and lead by example for my students. Dr. King taught us that we can not afford to shut the door on important conversations and listening is one of our greatest assets when confronting bigotry. If we seek first to understand then we can slowly let go of the need to be right and turn our attention to taking action to make our communities better for everyone. Dr. King helps me and my students to work toward measured words and persistent action in hopes we can make America whole.

  

Dr. King reminds us that when we try to feel the pain of others, we can grasp an inescapable truth: we will always have our humanity in common. He taught us to embrace an empathetic approach to understanding the world and we honor Dr. King when we choose love over hate. We can feel Dr. King's legacy in the embrace of someone whose ideology, background or views may be different than our own. King reminded all of us, "Let no man pull you low enough to hate him."

As teachers, we need to show our children that our desire to do better and to be better requires that we maintain the courage to speak out against intolerance and demonstrate a personal ambition to understand others.

The legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. can be seen by today’s leaders - ordinary men, women and children - who are taking action to fulfill our dream for a better America.  

Note: Dr. King creatively weaved his lessons about fellowship and resistance into a sermon (1956) in which he read a letter from the Apostle Paul to Americans and that sermon inspired this blog entry. His teachings are just as relevant today as as they were more than 60 years ago.  I strongly encourage you to check it out HERE.

Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.                                     - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

MLK and Letterman remind us to pay attention to our drum major

Reflections on a snow day: On this, our sixth snow day of the school year, I have decided to allow myself a limited amount of time to write while my two unsupervised children make forts and destroy the house. I have a strict time limit, otherwise this entry might stretch into a week-long project.

Dr. King and David Letterman headline my learning today. The iconic late night entertainer was an unexpected answer to writer's block after many futile attempts trying to write about Martin Luther King's lessons for today's world. King and Letterman are a unique combo and their ideas laid out in this blog post are worth connecting.

Dr. King (undated) - AP, creative commons

I spent a lot of time leading up to Martin Luther King Day pouring over his “B-side” speeches and writings looking for something new to help me make sense of the modern political landscape.

That’s when I discovered his Drum Major Instinct speech from February 1968. I was familiar with the portions where he spoke eloquently about his own eulogy (Link here) and famously said, “I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to give his life serving others... I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity."

It was the other parts of his 35-minute sermon that made an impression recently though. In light of of President Trump’s January 2018 reference in an Oval Office meeting to El Salvador, Haiti and African nations as “shit holes” Dr. King's words from fifty years ago struck a chord.

“Do you know that a lot of the race problem grows out of the drum major instinct?" King declared. "A need that some people have to feel superior. A need that some people have to feel that they are first, and to feel that their white skin ordained them to be first.”

I read the speech several times, listened to it and parsed the passages, playing them against the video reels in my head from Charlottesville, Ferguson and news stories about good people recently deported from the United States.  

President Trump continues to both exploit and expose racism in the United States. Sure, Trump’s disgraceful remarks reveal his character, but they also beg the question, who are we?

Who we are is complicated. It is hard to accept a reality where a sizable portion of our electorate either has the luxury to ignore the consequences of Trump's words and actions or worse, chooses to support him despite the negative consequences. Maybe worse, some people are unaware that silently looking away is accepting the Trump world view and that also has consequences that will be difficult to fix. Sadly, children can get swept up in adult complicity and that's where schools can play a vital role in calling out intolerance and bigotry. Even in the age of Trump, American values like diversity, equality and civic engagement can still be taught independent of politics or ideology. This is one of the great social studies education challenges of our time.

The prejudice and fear underlying the current debate about refugees, immigrants and border security (AKA "the wall") are evidence that it will take more than the passage of another five decades to heal our open racism wounds in the United States. With each mean-spirited tweet and hateful rant by the president, the opening for for a worthy policy debate gets swallowed by Trump's shadow. King’s 1968 Drum Major sermon was a warning to Americans about what can happen if unfit leaders obtain power. Meanwhile, in 2018 too many people have taken cover under Trump's shadow and chosen him as their drum major. Acknowledging the intolerance and prejudice espoused by President Trump and making honest efforts to do better is as important today as eradicating racist voting laws was in the 1960's.

About the impulse for people driven by ego and intolerance King reminds us, “...The final great tragedy of the distorted personality is the fact that when one fails to harness this instinct, he ends up trying to push others down in order to push himself up. And whenever you do that, you engage in some of the most vicious activities.” With conviction, King added, “God didn't call America to do what she's doing in the world now.”

King's words in 1968 were a harbinger of modern America. Policies carrying the stench of bigotry cannot be separated from the words and deeds of the man who promotes them. It has become increasingly more difficult to separate the merits of policy disagreements from the ugly insults President Trump uses to disparage minorities, his opponents, the media and sometimes even members of his own political party.

Remaining vigilant and seeking the truth may be exhausting, but not doing so could lead to a crisis.

How was I not aware?

John Lewis (far right) with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (center) leading 

a march in Alabama to protest restrictive voting rights for 

African Americans in 1965.  (Public Domain)

David Letterman brought this topic full circle in his conversation with President Obama that recently aired on his Netflix series, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction.

A portion of the interview centered around the courageous work of US Congressman John Lewis (D-GA) during the Civil Rights Movement. Lewis and King organized the March from Selma to Montgomery, later known as Bloody Sunday due to the violence that ensued at the hands of law enforcement.

Letterman and Obama reminisced about the bravery of Americans throughout history who blazed a trail for others in their quest for a more perfect union. In the interview, President Obama marveled at the ordinary people who courageously took action and joined together to make change. He remarked that presidential leadership involves more than governing and he credited his wife Michelle Obama for bringing that fact into focus for him.

“One of the things that Michelle figured out, in some ways faster than I did, was part of your ability to lead the country doesn't have to do with legislation, doesn't have to do with regulations," Obama said. "It has to do with shaping attitudes, shaping culture, increasing awareness.”

Increasing awareness of the current US challenges may be the first hurdle we need to clear in order to dig into the more complicated work of creating a better future. We need to overcome narratives by the current White House and their allies that tell us everything is just fine and that real problems related to economic inequality, racism and sexism do not belong to all of us to solve.
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President Obama made the point that hard work and talent are necessary to lead effectively, but that good fortune and luck also play a role.

To that point Letterman claimed luck helped propel him to a national platform as an entertainer. He made that point by suggesting that the failure to respond with empathy to the real struggles faced by others is part of our American legacy.

President Obama and David Letterman backstage as part of the hour-long 
Netflix special that aired in January 2018. Photo by Joe Pugliese / Netflix

“Mr. President, this is what I’m struggling with at this point in my life: I have been nothing but lucky,” Letterman solemnly stated. “When John Lewis and his friends [marched across the bridge], in April of ’65 me and my friends were driving to Florida to get on a cruise ship to go to the Bahamas because there was no age limit to purchase alcohol, and we spent the entire week, pardon my French, shit-faced,” Letterman quipped.

“Why wasn’t I in Alabama? Why was I not aware? I have been nothing but lucky.”

Letterman’s response hit home and made me realize that the American story that we talk about in schools is at worst contrived and at best incomplete. Letterman’s conversation with President Obama has prompted me to raise my own level of awareness.

I never want my students to say in ten, twenty or even fifty years when they look back at this period in our nation’s history, “Why was I not aware?”

Intentionally tackling issues and raising awareness in schools

The challenge to tackle these tough topics does not rest solely on the shoulders of educators, but we are a critical part of the solution. We should feel a profound sense of opportunity as educators because we can help students usher in a better way of understanding our world.

This documentary from 2017 is on my list to watch 

as soon as possible. It was nominated for an Oscar and 
won the Audience Choice Award for the Best 
Documentary Feature at the 2016 Chicago International 
Film Festival.

Yes, we can read and discuss James Madison and James Baldwin. Modern black authors like Ta-Nehisi Coates and the classic standard-bearers like Toni Morrison and W.E.B. Du Bois (List here) can be intertwined with textbook accounts of American history and politics. A start here is better than the alternative of reading chapter three and regurgitating cookie-cutter answers.

“Why was I not aware?” is the same question so many people were asking leading up to and since the 2016 election of Donald Trump. The roles of gender, race and economics in the 2016 election should be examined beyond 2016 though. I cannot answer the question, 'Why was I not aware?' for all of my readers, but I am honest with myself in admitting that I have had the privilege to not be aware.

That unawareness and how it manifests itself in specific beliefs and social constructs has to be part of the American story we boldly navigate in American schools. This is part of my own learning and it has pushed me to wonder if maybe we failed by teaching kids to memorize state capitals at the expense of asking them to think more critically about why inequality exists. My exploration into these topics is fueled by my growing concern that young people are giving up on the institutions and the people who serve them. Civic duty and service to others are at the foundation of the American spirit. We need well-educated and optimistic young people to take the reigns soon. My goal is to cut through the shame and blame and open myself up so that I can be more aware. Teachers need to model curisoity and discomfort with topics like race that are a critical part of the American story.

In doing so, I hope I help my students do the same - whoever they are, whatever their story, wherever their journey originated and whatever their political and ideological leanings. We all have a responsibility to dig a little deeper. For me, this aspect of my teaching and my being is very intentional. President Obama provided some insight about digging deeper and confronting racism in his recent interview with Letterman.

“It turns out that we come up with all kinds of reasons to try to put ourselves over other people,” Obama said. “Racism is a profound example of that, but obviously biologically there’s no actual reality to it other than we made this thing up. We made it up.”

My goal is to spark curiosity in students. We begin with the messy work of diagnosing problems and for me and the 150-plus students I teach, there is not a road map. We are not afraid to create one though.

Lately I have been listening to and reading speeches by prominent American leaders, investigating how their ideas might apply today. In my quest to make some sense of the vitriol and tribalism that is swirling around the Trump Administration, I have firmly landed on a few truths about my role as an educator:

1. Students and teachers need space to explore important topics in a safe setting where “right and wrong” takes a backseat to “learning and understanding."
2. It is critical that teachers at every level help young people grapple with the implications of privilege, bias and complicity. A failure to exercise our “empathy muscles” in school weakens the prospects for lasting change.
3. Mutual respect, trust and solid relationships in a classroom are a minimum requirement and those aspects of a learning culture simply allows for the work to begin. Expecting people to act boldly and truthfully requires a culture of learning that encourages people to change their minds when new information persuades us to think in more enlightened ways.

This book really opened my eyes to how 
much I don't know about the American 
experience. I agree with Toni Morrison 
- this is required reading. 

Read Coates work HERE
and HERE 

As a social studies teacher I have a responsibility to my students to provide an accurate historical context and a fact-based account of the events shaping today’s news cycle. I never expected that agreeing to the same set of facts would be so difficult. The time it takes to digest basic facts should be balanced with lessons about topics like prejudice, inequality and systemic challenges facing all of us. Letterman's conversation with President Obama encouraged me to stay mindful of what is at stake for our students.

I was reminded of President Obama's words following the murder of nine black worshippers in Charleston SC at the hands of a white supremacist when he called on Americans to make lasting change in regard to race in America.

"None of us can or should expect a transformation in race relations overnight," Obama said. "Every time something like this happens, somebody says, 'We have to have a conversation about race.' We talk a lot about race. There's no shortcut."

Perhaps one of the most glaring weaknesses of our republic today is our failure to recognize that racism still infects our politics and intolerance continues to pull the levers of American democracy fifty years after King's passing.

President Obama is right - there are no shortcuts. So, let's get to work today so that this era can mark the point in our history when we finally acknowledge our unawareness and actually do something about it. That is a legacy Republicans and Democrats could all be proud to claim ownership.

NOTE: Dr. King's Drum Major Instinct sermon was adapted from a 1952 homily by preacher J. Wallace Hamilton.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR of CIVICS ENGAGED: Nick Gregory has been a social studies and journalism teacher in Michigan since 2000 and he has been a National Writing Project Teacher consultant and a junior varsity basketball coach since 2002. Gregory is a Michigan Education Voice Fellow and he has exhibited photography related to Detroit and social justice causes since 2011. Gregory, who has a Masters degree in Educational Leadership, believes that building positive relationships helps students find their passion for learning. You can follow him on Twitter @CivicsEngaged.

Taking on Something New

Working Together to Make the Digital Portfolio a Success

Photo from City University of Seattle, Creative Commons

Background: As the co-chair of our school improvement committee I was tasked with leading our freshmen class (about 300 students) and high school teaching & administrative staff (about 60 adults) in the development of a school-wide initiative for the individual creation of a digital portfolio. Each incoming class will take part in the digital portfolio experience so that within four years, it will be a school-wide program. We hope to advance our program at the middle school as well. The connections to our high school curriculum and the post-high school planning for our students is being defined and developed by our high school building leadership team with staff input. The school district I serve includes one high school (approximately 1,200 students) and one 6-8 middle school (around 800 students). There are three K-5 elementary schools and a Pre-K program as well.

Before I dive in, I want to thank my colleagues for adding ideas to our framework and challenging my thinking about the digital portfolio experience. Your questions led to the creation of this blog post. In this post, I am intentionally going straight from my heart to explain the intended “learning targets” associated with the digital portfolio experience. I decided that reviewing research and our school improvement goals for this blog post would take away from the authenticity these topics require.

I hope my explanations below will help you find meaning in the digital portfolio experience.  

Why are we doing this?

Great question and perhaps the most important place to start. My work with our staff last week opened my eyes to how important it is to have the “why” in place before taking something like this on as an entire staff.

Part of my story going back to Ionia, Mich. and my family. By sharing our stories,  
we are more likely to connect. I am on the far right sitting in my mom's lap  (first row)

TELL A STORY: A digital portfolio is intended to tell a story. The portfolio itself is the medium to tell that story. The creation of the portfolio is the learning experience. A digital portfolio is a learner-led experience that can be shared easily. We are all unique and those traits that make us the “characters” we have turned into over time add to the personality of our school culture. The question, “Who am I?” is the beginning of our story for the digital portfolio experience. All of our stories will evolve over the life of the portfolio. Sharing who we are enhances the learning environment, making our school a more welcoming place where building positive relationships is embraced by students and staff together.  

REFLECTION: Any experience that helps us reflect on our learning and our role as educators is positive.The portfolio emboldens each of us to dig in on that reflective practice on our own terms and at our own pace. We spend hours planning and teaching. We dedicate time to professional development and we can all agree that the PD we get the most out of usually involves the experiences we choose and the experiences that are closest to our hearts. A digital portfolio can be the launching point for each of us to dig in and share with an audience those learning experiences we are most passionate about and eager to explore deeper.

Photo By Nick Gregory

TECHNOLOGY ADVANCES DIFFERENTIATED LEARNING GOALS: The creation of a digital portfolio helps the creator develop useful technology and storytelling skills on the learner's own terms. Perhaps more importantly, the digital portfolio experience allows the creator to highlight and explore several disciplines, learning styles and methods of communication simultaneously (writing, video, audio, graphic arts, etc.). A digital portfolio is fluid in nature so investing in this medium encourages risk-taking, trying new things and manipulating technology. Twenty-first century skills benefiting everyone naturally translate into a digital portfolio learning experience. The digital portfolio is a dynamic work in progress. 

CLAIM YOUR EXPERTISE: We should celebrate the fact that our students have talents and passions that span a wide spectrum. As we claim and share our interests we are empowering our students to place some trust in us to do the same. Everyone reading this is an expert in something. Beyond that, TEACHERS ARE EXPERTS in the craft of teaching. We should claim our expertise and share it with an audience. We invest ourselves in a multitude of professional endeavors related to helping youth and leading others.

We all know of colleagues who are doing awesome things professionally that are worthy of shining light upon. In order to build a culture that is based upon collaboration and risk-taking, claiming expertise will help our school continue to improve. If a portfolio can be one vehicle where we re-frame expertise as an asset to our learning community and dismiss the idea that it is bragging, we will exponentially add value to our school culture. Taking advantage of this opportunity to remind our students and others that our passion and drive extends beyond merely showing up is a win for education.

For our diverse student body, the digital portfolio encourages them to explore and claim their own expertise. There is tremendous educational value in explicitly identifying interests and claiming expertise.

SHARED LEARNING EXPERIENCE: Our mission to build positive relationships with students and among our staff is enhanced when we share a learning experience. Navigating the challenges together and even calling into question the value of this experience makes our learning valuable. My favorite part of leading this endeavor has been leaning on my colleagues for advice and having my ideas challenged. For many people on our staff, the digital portfolio will offer an in for us to help one another. Many of our students will thrive as they see opportunities to help classmates and adults with portfolios. Start where you are on this experience. The best conditions are set for learning when we get out of our comfort zones and share in some collective vulnerability.  

My Professional Portfolio:  https://ngregory48846.wixsite.com/nickgregory

My next blog post will include the following digital portfolio topics:

• What is my role as a teacher? 
• How do I start? 
• Who is my audience?

An Open Letter to Students Who are Tackling Racism

A letter written by me to our high school drama students in response to their incredible performance of Harper Lee’s, To Kill a Mockingbird. I am posting it here to spread the great news about the impact engaged students have on the world. It is our responsibility to foster a culture in schools where ideas turn into action. Kudos to teacher-extraordinaire Lori Thompson for her direction of this production and her remarkable leadership helping all of us make meaning through our struggles. This letter was given to each member of the cast and production team.

The Dream is Now, Detroit. By Nick Gregory

You are an all-star.

I figured since a few of you have been on the receiving end of my high-fives in the hallway or praise in my classroom, you should know why I am so fired up about your role in the FHS performance of, To Kill a Mockingbird.

I am writing this letter to you because you pulled something off that some people spend a lifetime trying to do; you significantly moved the needle toward progress. I do not say that lightly.

Working for progress is tedious work and it tests our patience.

The fight for progress can make us feel isolated. Striving to get to a better place can be lonely.

A true commitment to progress makes us vulnerable as we reflect on our own imperfections and flaws.

The process of making progress can be discouraging at times.

Voice of Hope, Detroit. By Nick Gregory 

Your performance and the honesty with which you delivered it brought all of the above truths about progress to light. You revealed the complicated layers that make confronting bigotry and racism challenging. All aspects of the evening - the acting, the character development, the video montages, the set and direction, the Q & A - it came together remarkably. You reached hundreds of people directly from the theatre alone. Add to that your interactions with guests, in Flint, with your families and among your peers and the scale of your influence expands dramatically. More importantly, you will continue to fight for good ideas and so will many of the people who shared this learning experience with you.

Never underestimate the power of ideas and our capacity to evolve as human beings.

Your effort, focused study and the exhausting rehearsal that went into authentically delivering To Kill a Mockingbird demonstrates respect for your audience and your belief in something bigger than the “show” itself. I admire your dedication. Truths about hate and love that have existed for more than the eighty years since the story was set, came to life in the theatre Saturday night.   

You did that. You helped people think and feel the tough stuff. Your work creating positive change in our world is only beginning and that excites me.

A few other ideas came to mind in the days since I enjoyed your performance.

Risk

Judge Not, Detroit. By Nick Gregory

Putting yourself out there to be a part of a team is a risk. Collectively, you got to a deeper level of understanding by opening yourself up to learning from new experiences and difficult conversations. It is inspiring to me and makes me want to keep reaching for more.

Empathy

We can never have too many reminders about the importance of “walking in another’s flip-flops” and opening our hearts and minds to the experiences of others. Empathy is a function of love and there’s no such thing as a surplus of love. You reminded me that empathy is greater than a set of actions or deeds. Empathy can be taught and modeled.  As a teacher and a dad, that’s a reminder I appreciate. Thank you.

Evolve

We have the power to change. Every person, regardless of age or background, is capable of change and forgiveness.

When I was in college, my uncle referred to a good friend of mine as a “Sand-N-word”  and it shook me up. My friend is Indian and has dark skin. My uncle was looking through some spring break photos I brought to a family gathering and he spewed his hate so casually that it caught me off-guard. He said it as though he was describing an obvious feature like his jet black hair or his goofy smile and I remember feeling helpless. My uncle’s bigoted slur hung in the air the entire day. I struggled for a long time with the fact that I never spoke up back then. I don’t remember exactly, but I am sure I was weary of creating tension with someone I loved.

At that time, I was not willing to go there.

I told myself for a long time that my uncle was just set in his ways and he was still a good guy (which is true). I questioned why he volunteered his hate so easily when it was not even solicited. It’s not like there was a heated discussion or a relevant topic that at least provided some context for his toxic attitude. Years later, the stench of his insulting remark has mostly evaporated, but traces of it still hang around in my mind. I began challenging myself to think about things like, how do we unlearn hate? I never wanted to feel helpless about speaking up again.     

Fast forward seven years and I had fallen in love with Beata, now my wife of eleven years. Beata is a first-generation Iranian-American whose parents immigrated to the United States in 1978. Like my college friend, my wife has dark skin, dark hair and her ethnic features are striking. By the time we got married, I decided that the discomfort my uncle might feel around my wife’s family with their accents and cultural customs was his burden, not mine.

Horrible slurs and insults like the one I heard years prior would never happen again in my presence. At first, I was not sure if my uncle changed or if he just toned down his rhetoric around me. Today, I believe that he has changed. He thinks differently than he did a decade ago.  

As I have fallen more in love with my wife and her beautiful family (they’re now my family too), I appreciate how their unique life experiences as US immigrants have influenced Beata. My in-laws have opened my eyes to an American Dream that I never had to contemplate growing up. They have also opened my eyes to valuable experiences that have shaped their view of our nation’s struggles. When we gave birth to our own children, I began re-thinking my own ideas about love and hate; bigotry and inclusion. I guess you could say that like my uncle, my ideas are evolving.

What has changed most for me is that I no longer feel that the racism others have learned is their burden alone. The hate and baggage others carry is my burden too. It is also your burden.

Racism and prejudice are rooted in sins that our nation has been living with for centuries and acknowledging that truth is a critical first step. This hatred cannot be denied, nor can it be justified. As we have learned, silence in the face of hate is support. Sometimes the bigotry is softly disguised as indifference, but it is still wrong. We know that prejudice can be  expressed in both subtle and overt ways. Neither are acceptable. I am learning though that there is such a thing as a “recovering racist” and that people can change. People do change. We learn how to change - some slower than others - but we learn with experiences and we learn with practice.

Your performance was a testament to that practice. It takes practice. The work does not end with one act or an epiphany. Commitment to helping others doesn’t really end,  it just changes as we grow. You reminded me of that truth. Thank you.

You appear to have examined so much of this long before many adults do and I am grateful. It helps me remain optimistic. Hopefully your feelings about diversity and tackling our differences by listening with open hearts is reflective of your generation. We, the adults, need your help. I got to witness your leadership on stage and in the conversation that followed.

One Step at a Time - Building Bridges, Detroit. By N Gregory

Keep this conversation going.

The good ideas will always be worth fighting for, even when all of the usual indicators might say those good ideas are losing. The ideas only lose when people give up. You put on display a favorite quote of mine: “It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.” (Attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt and I believe the origin is from a Chinese proverb).

You reminded me Saturday night that it is important for me to keep my candle lit, especially when the nasty winds of hatred are swirling all around us. I am committed to contributing to “going there” to “get there.”

I am inspired that you are elevating your voices and providing the light we need so badly in our nation right now.

Grateful. Proud. Fired up.

Sincerely,

Mr. Gregory