Check in on Your People: A Thread

I gave a presentation on “Disrupting with Dignity” this past week to a group of my colleagues — amazing movers and shakers in AACPS Equity work.

Moments before, we watched a recording of a Black woman w/a hearing impairment being pulled over...

...by an Officer. She was belittled, harassed, assaulted, and then gaslighted

All while her children screamed blood-curdling cries of “Mooommy!” in the background.

She tried to comfort them, “it’s okay, it’s okay” through tears & anguish from the ground where she lay handcuffed

I watched, and I knew she would never be the same.

those babies would never be the same.

Trauma.

A drop in the sea of inhumanity that Black families face daily...those that you won’t hear about because “they made it out alive”.

I watched & I couldn’t breathe.

I looked around the room, trying to identify something I could touch, see, smell...trying to ground myself. Something I could hear...I shook.

I could still hear children screaming. I heard my children screaming.

I couldn’t remember my own name.

And then a minute, or maybe an eternity, later, it was my turn to present.

I told my trusted colleagues I was triggered, and thankfully they created space for me to be as vulnerable as I could in that moment.

I was still not okay.

I couldn’t really tell you what I said during the presentation.

Thank God for practice and good notes because I was on autopilot.

Per feedback from the group, the learning was well received & it sank in.

I thank God for that too, because I know students will be better for it

As I continued to process a day or so later, I realized that this is what Black professionals — Black students, parents, citizens face everyday.

We experience the trauma of seeing our people murdered, harassed, assaulted...on a video loop, daily.

And then we go to work.

...we go to school, we parent our children, we go into public spaces

And we are expected (and we expect ourselves) to perform at peak levels while climbing a mountain of injustice with traumatic injuries and insufficient tools to do so.

But we do anyway...and it is a miracle.

I wrote this to implore educators (and employers and parents and anyone who will listen)...

Check in on your Black students (or staff members, children...*insert group in your sphere of influence here*).

And do it regularly.

We know and experience the trauma of what we see in media, and in our own personal experiences daily ... and the trauma multiplies when we come to school (or work, etc.) and everyone carries on like nothing has happened. And we are expected to engage and perform at peak

And while you’re checking in on Black folx, check on our Trans and LGBTQ+ youth who are seeing legislative efforts to eradicate their quality of life in state after state.

Check on our Brown youth whose families emigrated from oppression only to immigrate into oppression

Check on our Indigenous youth who take US history classes with the knowledge that their history has been erased (in the mainstream) with blood, tears, and our collective silence (while a nation was built by and on the backs of enslaved Blacks) on the land that was theirs first.

Check on our AAPI students who see their people beaten, battered, and murdered due to ignorance & xenophobia, but who don’t see nearly enough representation in the media.
Check on girls, our neurodivergent community, those trapped in systemic impoverishment

Check on our people.

We are all beautiful humans who contribute to society (both historically and current) in a powerful way.

But we are not always okay.

Checking in and creating inclusive spaces where we can be safe, vulnerable, seen, and empowered is one way you can help us to get there.