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Rise Up for Students is a blog advocating for racial equity and radical empathy in our schools, in Seattle and beyond
If you are a parent, George Floyd named you by name. We are on a path toward abolition. Consider that it took a Civil War to end chattel slavery, and that the Montgomery Bus Boycott alone lasted 382 days.
How committed are you to this? What will you do? And what will you keep doing?
Read MoreOur traditional public schools are systemically inequitable — in Seattle, in Washington State, and everywhere else in the United States. Put another way, our schools are consistently producing inequitable outcomes based on race and family income, and it’s a form of systemic oppression.
We know this, most of us. But for most of us, that’s all we do. We know it. It’s mostly an intellectual idea.
So instead of idle knowledge, let’s consider for a moment what that really means — systemic oppression — and what it means for us as human beings.
Read MoreThe practice of land acknowledgment dates back centuries (at least) among indigenous communities, and is more common in the mainstream in Australia, New Zealand and Canada than in the U.S., but it is a growing movement here as well.
The idea is that before an event — whether it’s a school day, a sporting event, a meeting or even a family meal — you take a moment to name, thank and consider the people whose displacement allows you to be where you are. Whose historical trauma makes it possible for you to thrive as you do in the place you live?
Read MoreCheck out music from Matt Halvorson
