January 7, 2021
Dear LREI Community,
Greetings. I write to you after joining conversations in both the middle school and high school this morning. The principals discussed yesterday’s attack on the U.S. Capitol before sending students to classroom conversations later in the day. As always, we will rely on the passion and knowledge that students bring to these conversations and on the expertise the faculty bring to their work with our children each day. Your children really do want to understand their world and to find ways to be participants in it. There was no question but that we would make time today to work to understand and to condemn the violent assault yesterday – an assault on the actual and symbolic seat of power and an assault on our democracy, on the millions upon millions of people who do their parts to support our democratic institutions, and on our children’s futures. Astonishing, troubling, dangerous, and ongoing.
We also talked about the racism embedded in the rhetoric that for years has stoked the movement that led to yesterday’s events, the racism on display throughout the election campaigns and the post-election processes, and the systemic racism that formed the police response, or lack thereof, as white insurgents threatened the very heart of our society. How different this response was from the enforcement responses to the protests after the murders of black citizens at the hands of the police this summer. Yesterday’s criminals wore the protective cloak of their white privilege, and it did indeed shield them, allowing most to simply and safely leave and go home.
I had planned to send you a different letter today. I was going to write about our partnership in keeping the community safe from the danger of Covid-19. As I thought about that letter, my frame was the danger of our common enemy, Covid-19, the greatest threat to our freedom and safety. And then yesterday happened.
We will come out of the pandemic – aided by science, by vaccines, by time. It will be hard. It will take too long. It will be sad, but it will subside. As I watched and listened on Wednesday, the true “greatest danger” was splashed all over the news, my computer and phone, on Twitter, CNN, and Fox, in all of its chaotic, inflamed violence and violation; its lawbreaking and bigotry; the physical manifestation of the rhetoric we have heard for five years.
As I think about it, and I know others will think about it differently in whole or part, this danger has a few parts:
- We are all too willing to believe without understanding or investigation. We have to acknowledge that sometimes the facts are the facts. Opinions are necessary, but simply wanting these opinions to be facts will not make it so. Asking questions and doing research is important. At some point we need to believe the science and the evidence. Think something is wrong? Prove it! We will learn something new together. LREI has work to do in this area.
- An inability to leverage our diversity, our differences, to benefit society; to respect each other for both our commonalities and for what sets us apart. The tension that comes with difference can lead to a deeper understanding and respect. Diversity is a strength. We need to embrace it and to use the tension it brings to propel us to a stronger place. Our differences can unite us. This is hard for all of us, and we must all be consciously dedicated to the value in the discord.
- A lack of understanding of the Constitution and the laws on which our society rests. Understanding, knowledge, civics. Civics should not be unidimensional – love it or leave it. It can feel this way at LREI. More for us to work on. An understanding of how our government is designed to work, including all of its faults, how it can be changed and improved, and why its workings are important to each and all is an essential part of a child’s education.
- Freedom, individuality, community, independence, interdependence. When can we demand to be left alone? When must we fall in line? Which rules must we follow? When should we break them? What are our responsibilities to each other? To our community, to our neighbors, to those we don’t know yet, to those who we will never know? To those with whom we agree and to those with whom we will never agree? I would argue that to some degree we owe the same level of respect and care to the person to whom we feel closest as we do to the person from whom we feel the farthest away.
The deep divisions in our society fall out around race and class, location, religion, and around the sense of who belongs and who does not; who is cared for and who is not. Race was front and center at the Capitol on Wednesday. These trespassers invaded the Capitol almost without consequence. This would have been a different event had these crowds been mainly people of color. We will see if the aftermath, the consequences in the courts and in the court of public opinion, offers justice, or will we continue to criminalize just protest while not justly protesting true crimes?
To be continued.
Peace and health,
