Staying Aware and Finding Opportunities

Our meeting with the Chair of the School Board was very good last week. We had about 15 people attend and it was a useful discussion and an opportunity to share with her some of our experiences of inequity among our county’s schools. We will be staying in touch with her as things move forward, especially because an Equity Policy will be crafted to coincide with Equity being one of the main focuses of the newly approved Strategic Plan.

Here’s an article I came across recently about economic segregation that is very important to keep in mind as we work in educational equity efforts in our community.

Don’t forget about the June 30 march in DC — I know many of you are planning on attending.

I’m sure many of you saw the school district news about Virginia recognizing 14 Arlington Schools for Excellence in Education and that all of those schools are located on the north side of our community. The group focusing on the 4th HS equality advocacy pointed it out within their email list and I wrote to invite anyone interested in working on this in the community as a whole to join our group. Welcome to those of you who have joined us!

SURJ National sent out an opportunity last week to participate in a sponsorship program to “offer support to those who are detained, increase the likelihood of folks being released from detention, and create “organizing hubs” across the country to pressure local communities to distance themselves from detention practices. If you’re interested in serving as a sponsor or helping out in another way (financial, social media, engaging your faith community, etc), sign up here and we’ll be in touch with you soon."

Lawrence Crosby is a PhD graduate in materials engineering. He wrote an opinion piece in the Washington Post about getting arrested for stealing a car, despite the fact that the car was his own. Police behavior is obviously a well-documented problem. However, as people with privilege, we must remember that the decision to call the police about something can irrevocably change someone’s life, could endanger that person’s life. Please consider other options before making that decision.

One of our members shared this article with me, from The Interpreter (a newsletter from the New York Times) “Does Calling Out Racism Change Anyone’s Mind?” I’d love to hear your thoughts since some of the conversations we have with our community members are intended to raise awareness about our own/each others’ covert racism and I’d like to think that minds can be changed.

Keep the conversations going!