Talking to Our Kids and Halloween

Hi Friends,

I’m loving the draft language one of our members wrote up and shared that we can send to our county school board about the middle school boundary considerations and emphasizing the importance of considering equity and diversity at all of our schools.

I submitted some feedback and received a very thoughtful and person response back from a staff member, so that was encouraging. I hope everyone else who submitted something to the email address received the same. Keep sharing your voices and your perspectives — there are so many opportunities right now just in our county.

Two of our group members shared a couple of articles about talking to our kids about race.

I have signed up for a webinar through Embrace Race entitled “Why and how to encourage cross-racial friendships among children.” Especially given our interest in attending diverse schools, this should be quite relevant and interesting. I’ll let you know what I learn — feel free to join in, too!

I’m including a quick article about cultural appropriation, especially since Halloween is next week. Please make sure that the costumes you and your children are wearing are sensitive to this issue. And talk to your kids about costumes they might see and why they aren’t appropriate. It’s a good opportunity for conversation.

I also wanted to share a local resource for families. First, they have a whole page about resources for talking about race: https://apcyf.arlingtonva.us/2017/04/lets-talk-race/. Second, one of their staff members presented at this week’s county-wide PTA meeting about their survey results from this year, which are not about race, but definitely speak to the experiences of kids in our county schools and which I found very eye-opening and upsetting and useful. These are worth exploring in detail.

I know that the holidays are going to quickly overwhelm most of us. In light of that, start brainstorming for the new year now. I’d like for us as a group and as individuals to identify an opportunity in our community to leverage our privilege for positive change. If the group wants to continue to focus on schools, that’s great. If something else struck you as meaningful or a place where you have access or contacts, then focus on that. We have incredible power and we need to use it for change. Here’s some inspiration from Shaun King about turning the desire for change into actual change.

We’re getting some small group meetings set up. I’ll keep this weekly update going, so please keep sending your thoughts and events/articles to share. Keep the conversations going!

Self Care and White Terrorism

Hi Friends,

The March for Racial Justice was really meaningful and I’m so glad I was able to go with a few others.

I’m sure I’m not alone in this, but I’m feeling very emotionally drained, very tired. So many things have been happening in the last week/month/etc and it can get overwhelming. In light of that, I want to remind everyone about self-care and that it is required that you take breaks away from the news and social media, to reconnect with your values and your loved ones, and then to come back ready to work again.

Back in January, I received an email from a woman running an email list called Action Now. She hasn’t written much in a while, but what she did share was so helpful at the time. I’m sharing it with you because I’ve been revisiting it lately, trying to re-ground myself in what is most important (especially since everything feels important right now!). Here are some excerpts:

Think about all of the things swirling around you, all the opportunities you have to do things and act on your values and choose these three things:
One thing to be a leader on
One thing to be a follower on
One thing to make a habit of

If you have the energy, here’s an important and clarifying article by Shaun King about the role whiteness is playing in the treatment of the Las Vegas terrorist.

Hang in there! We’re all in this together.