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As a child, my father worked for the Social Security Administration and made it his mission to get Social Security cards to people who were incarcerated and to make sure the documents were translated into Spanish so that immigrants new to our country could understand their rights. He helped to start a community center with his Black friend and mentor, Emmet D. Wise — a center that is still serving families in Michigan City, Ind.
My father took risks during the era of de facto segregation, but amid the tensions, including death threats, I marveled at how he talked with equal respect to people in crisis and to elected leaders. When I was 10, Dad was killed in a tragic car/train crash, and I learned firsthand that in a second, bad things do happen to us.
After my father died, friends from the Netherlands and Emmet’s family took us under their wing, comforting us, hosting us and lifting our hearts. They were brilliant people, dignified and kind, and I wanted to follow their example of building strength across cultures.
They inspired me to study French, and in high school, to apply to the Indiana University Honors Program in Foreign Language, through which I lived in France under a no-English rule. While I made my share of mistakes with the language, I learned the delicate interplay between language and culture.
The Minneapolis Public Schools began measuring disparities between white students and students of color when my children were in school (2003). We began to understand that socioeconomic factors and access to early learning opportunities strongly impacted cognitive development. At the time, I met groundbreaking educator Katie Sample and invited her to speak at Marcy Open School. Katie taught us this: If a group of people are constantly given the message through various means of communication (spoken and unspoken) that they are capable of success, and if they are encouraged by all parties in their world (i.e., parents, school and friends), using culturally competent methods to bring about their success, they will achieve. Katie, one of my greatest teachers, knew that if children who were struggling made academic gains, it helped all the children around them.
That hope for every child to succeed is at the heart of DEI, and it includes white children. White children are just as capable as immigrant children and children of color of grappling with painful aspects of history. We must believe that they can see their fate tied to that of other children in the garment of destiny. One day, they will surely need help from the peers they are supporting now. We can foster their success by introducing them to white abolitionists like Virginia Foster Durr and Elijah Lovejoy, who envisioned a more inclusive world and changed the course of history.
