The Bigots Won't Win
First days of school!
One granddaughter began high school (huh?) and our grandson entered 5th grade. The older granddaughter is about to enter her 3rd year of law school (double huh?).
Despite the odd sensation of having grandchildren old enough to do such things, the start of school never fails to evoke vivid memories.
I always felt gratitude for the new beginning, having frequently failed to honor the prior year’s sincere resolutions. I would soon fritter away the benefits of a blank slate and quickly enough mar it with procrastination, impulsivity and a tendency to value a good joke more than classroom decorum. Since this is not a confessional, I’ll not elaborate on the extent to which these qualities still fill my slate.
As school begins, the Trumpsters have intensified their attacks on DEI. Universities are scrapping DEI programs to avoid the wrath of petty tyrants. Schools at all levels are doing the same. Trans youth are politically marginalized, women are losing bodily autonomy (and more), and racism has come back out of the closet, having been at least socially unacceptable for a few decades.
But despite the Bobble-head-in-chief and his crew of vindictive supplicants, the genius of social progress will not be put back in the bottle.
What the faux Christian crusaders fail to see is that DEI is not just capital letters in a mission statement or an alleged stench to purge from the Smithsonian or the Kennedy Center. Diversity, equity and inclusion are lived social experiences and will not expire because admission offices erase the words from websites.
When I attended elementary, middle and high school - in a progressive community - I had no Black classmates. 14 years later, my younger brother attended the same high school and it was richly diverse. I knew no gay students - a remarkable fact given a high school enrollment of 3,000! The building did not have sufficient closet space for 300 gay kids, so I guess they just faked it to get by.
By contrast, our grandson’s current best pal from a theater program identifies as trans. I have no idea what that means at that age, but I do know that such an identity need not be hidden or a source of shame. I have read of “trans” being a favored identity in some youth communities, adopted for social cache! Go figure.
Throughout this long period of halting social progress the number of homophobes and racial bigots has not increased. The current miserable state of affairs is because they have been empowered, not been bred. Bigots of all flavors are products of familial and community conditioning, not government policy. Trump et al have not created a brilliant intellectual milieu in which millions of Americans have woken up one morning with deep-seated hatred of their Black or gay neighbors. They have just wiggled out from beneath their rocks into the warm glow of MAGA affection. The yahoos whizzing around in pick-ups with Trump flags were not regular contributors to the ACLU before 2016. They were with us all along and they have no more power now - just more visibility.
The 60 years of slow, uneven social progress I’ve experienced will not be reversed by stupid EXECUTIVE ORDERS signed by a vengeance-minded doofus who mostly likes seeing his own signature, which I sense he’s practiced for many hours.
The changes in prior decades were not primarily about changing policies. They were about changing hearts and minds. The millions of people working to advance diversity, equity and inclusion aren’t going to stop because Trump is hosting the Kennedy Center Honors.
The real work of diversity, equity and inclusion is more personal than political. It is about consciously seeking and cultivating diverse communities through social outreach, community events and affordable housing initiatives, which needn’t even mention race.
I wish my grandchildren’s schools were more diverse, but their experiences are not limited to school and their values are being inculcated by several generations of adults whose lives are informed by and committed to social justice.
Those of us who value and learn from diverse communities, who see equity as a moral imperative, who see inclusion as both kind and necessary . . . we are the majority - the vast majority.
It is our children and grandchildren who will mold society for generations to come.
Our job is to make sure we survive until then.
Yes indeed, with all the spitting and hurling, we'be been encouraged to go wave signs and spit and hurl back, but I can't. It makes no sense to give my energy to that activity. It's all ego. We have been reaching out to people in our communities, lending calm and welcome, safety, curiosity, quieter strength. Keepin' in local, baby steps, small circles. This piece you've sent today helps me in my plans to return to school with what feels like a pocketful of hope. Many thanks, bro-in-law.