A Better Way

 

Tonight at seven pm: Re-imagining School Safety, a teach-in hosted by the Anti-Racist Alliance. Here’s the link to register. From the event page:

We will hear from experts in the legal system and restorative cultures as to what schools can look like without the harmful presence of SRO’s.

I see a lot of pushback online from people who don’t believe schools can be run safely without policing, and assert that there’s no viable plan to replace it. Tonight’s presentation could be eye-opening for such folks, but I somehow doubt they are open-minded enough to participate. 

But, you might be. 

This statement from writer @bmoredoc has been stuck in my brain since I read it:

When folk have a zero-sum ideology, when people are rising up, they think they are going down. Black success means Whites are "losing." Women rising feels like men are "left behind." LGBTQ rights is rendered as "straight oppression." There is no sense of collective victory.

Teach the children that when one group of downtrodden people rise, we all rise. Their victory is our victory. We are better as a society and stronger as human beings.

And, from President-elect Joseph Biden:

What happens to our children is going to determine exactly what happens to this nation. These aren’t someone else’s children, they’re our children. They’re the kite strings that lift our national ambitions aloft.

Addressing the harm that school policing is doing to Black and Brown students will make our whole community stronger. It’s not a loss. It’s an investment in their future and in our future. 

Take some time this evening if you can to learn more.