The president visited Chicago this past Monday, as thousands of people turned out to protest his first return to the city since his campaign and impeachment hearings picked up speed in the House. I wish I could have been out there protesting on Monday, and I support every effort to remove this president. He has…
This post builds on concepts from my previous posts "Racial development: a proposal for white people", "Antiracist white identity", and “Racial agency”. In the earlier essays in this series, I laid out the connections between antiracist white identity and racial agency. Antiracist white identity elaborates our vision of how we white people want to be…
The thread of Filipino-American history began on October 15, 1587, when the first Filipinos arrived on US shores aboard Spanish colonial ships. In the late 2000’s, California and Hawaii started to celebrate Filipino-American History Month in October to commemorate this arrival, and the US Congress proclaimed this month nationally in 2009. Now this is one…
I wrote recently about an argument on whether to include the phrase “systems of oppression” in an equity statement being adopted by the Oak Park Village Board. In this argument, one white male board member expressed reservations over including this phrase because he said that police officers might think their department is being called a…
At the beginning of each new session of the Oak Park Village Board, the board members vote to re-adopt the village's 50-year-old Diversity Statement. In the past year, a citizen commission had updated this statement, turning it into an Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Statement. Rather than adopting this new statement at the first meeting of…
This post builds on concepts from my previous posts "Racial development: a proposal for white people" and "Antiracist white identity". In my post on antiracist white identity, I emphasized that we must learn from history to develop our own vision of ourselves, mapping our personal journeys toward racial justice. To take an active role in…
I am a hypocrite. In the last week, I have continually advocated for the Global Climate Strike, writing about it on this blog, posting about it on social media, and organizing an event connected to climate change at my workplace. I take public transportation for my job as a leadership coach in Chicago schools whenever…
I step out the front door of our building. It is a warm, late-summer day, the grass is thick and green and the flowers are in full bloom -- pinks, purples, yellows. Our daughter takes off, yelling, “Dad, race me!” and I run after her, holding back a little so that she reaches our front…
This post builds on concepts from my previous post "Racial development: a proposal for white people". I grew up in the suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the child of a teacher and an engineer. My parents, my sister, and I lived on a winding street near the top of a hill, close enough to Milwaukee for…
As school begins for the fall, we must connect our schools and teaching to the real lived experiences of students. This means that we must make race a topic of conversation and study. Some schools have begun to take this leap when they are facing students of color, but too many do not do so…
Entwining 