I haven't explicitly posted much about anti-racism and equity over the last year because I had experiences in real life, especially professionally, that caused me to step back, reflect, re-evaluate and frankly, necessitated the need to regroup and heal. This post is me, ready to be back.⁠ ⁠ I've been doing anti-racist work in schools for over a decade and in the recent wave of activism, it seems people believe tearing each other down is the work. It's not. We cannot do this work with a self-righteous "us vs them" mentality. There is always fault to find. After all, we are all part of the system. Not one of us is blameless and not one of us will walk on this journey without making mistakes. ⁠ ⁠ The cancelling, the judging, the labeling, the ostracizing, only creates unsafe spaces and divides people that should be working together. It silences dialogue, makes mistakes a liability. It makes learning and progress impossible. Some do this intentionally for power and clout, while some act with good intentions that actually hinder progress - just like those they judge to be "problematic" and not "woke" enough. Some of the spaces I've been the most excluded and silenced are spaces and schools that profess to be doing anti-racist, inclusion work. ⁠ ⁠ It's easy to call out and cancel others, especially when the checklist for not f-ing up is constantly shifting & growing. The hard work is in working through difficult things together, engaging in dialogue, listening, learning. The hard work is in the nuance and complexity that cannot be captured in sound bites online. It's uncomfortable and it can make your stomach flip. It means acknowledging that things are not nearly as black and white as they seem, that there is a crap ton of grey and very rarely a clear right answer. ⁠When we tear each other down, we're upholding the systems we want to dismantle.⁠ ⁠ I will be the first to tell you I mess up all the time and I'm grateful for the community that helps me grow. We can only tear down oppressive systems by building coalition. By doing the hard work. Our healing comes in community. Our liberation comes the same way.