A Metaphor for Life (and a Lesson in Humility)

When I told my wife that I was not going to write a birthday blog this year, she looked at me a bit confused, surprised even. Considering all the years and all the blogs over the past decade, of any birthday, she figured this one would have been a sure thing. “This is your first birthday where you are a dad, you must have so much to say!” I told her that, despite this milestone, I actually didn’t know what to say. There are too many unknowns, too many questions, too many thoughts and feelings and emotions that I cannot quite grasp—that I cannot yet figure out. My mind is a messy mosaic of thoughts that do not yet fit together. (Plus, the lack of sleep probably has not helped, either.) As a person who thrives on structure, routine, and perpetual learning, I have never been less sure or less certain about what any of this all means as I earnestly look into my daughter’s eyes each day.

***

About two weeks ago I became a dad. It has been a whirlwind, to put it mildly. Sleepless nights. Projectile poop rockets. Constant crying—from our baby (and a little from ourselves). Shared glances of bewilderment and insecurity between my wife and I. The level of chaos has descended from pure havoc to a more, shall I say, “organized” chaos; we have settled into an uneasy rhythm with our newborn: feed, change the diaper, soothe her with some play time and then put her back to what always feels like a fragile sleep. Rinse and repeat. Rinse… and repeat.

When I think about why I did not plan on writing this year, I realized that it was because I just had too many questions—too many unfulfilled, unfiltered, and just un-figured-out thoughts to be able to put them on “paper” in a coherent way. If parenthood is the historical split of BCE and CE in one’s life, then this new phase was too close to Year 0 to make any sense of it all. It was too early; the uneasy rhythm of my monotonous days and sleepless nights, mostly filled with “tiny” questions about when to warm her milk bottle than any deep thoughts about meaningful takeaways of my life from the past year.

To be sure, some of that is my literal cognitive state, a mixture of little sleep and balance of finishing teaching three classes and supporting over 300 undergraduate students, but a lot of that is the fact I have been so deeply absorbed in the puzzle of a newborn. Despite prognostications from friends and family about how parenthood is a life-defining experience, my thoughts and emotions have been firmly planted in the mundane: how many ounces should we feed her so she sleeps? How often do we feed her? How do I burp her correctly? How do I know she burped enough at all? Which cream to use for her diaper rash? How tight should her swaddle be? Which swaddle should I even be using? How many layers to dress her? Is the amount of light affecting her sleep? How do we get to sleep more than an hour or two? She fed and has a fresh diaper, so why is she crying? My days and nights have been littered with these endless little questions: they all add to up a (seemingly) never-ending puzzle of trying to figure out the right combination that, at the end of each day, always seems just slightly misaligned and out of reach of completion.

At this early juncture, I can already see that being a parent is a never-ending brain challenge: each phase of a child a different puzzle with different needs and different physical, intellectual, and/or emotional demands. But, it is not just the child that is a puzzle, but that life itself is a puzzle. Having a child and parenting has not just been humbling, but has helped me further realize my own humility and all that I, of course, do not know. It's funny: I think the best piece of advice someone gave me—a colleague—around having a baby was to not to take too seriously any single piece of advice. It is not because any advice is mal-intentioned—and I have greatly appreciated all the very helpful tips and suggestions from family and friends—it is just that I am not sure that anything is ever fully known. Intuition and truth can be hard to pull apart and I think that is also true about life—and it is important we never forget it. It is our life puzzle to find contentment and joy within our larger search for life’s answers, but never settling for one answer seems important, too, as it is this emotional search that is the journey as well as the destination.

As I zoom out of this moment, I realize that all these little questions about how the heck to put my daughter to sleep—a daily, hour-by-hour riddle—is perhaps the greatest metaphor for life that I could ever ponder up. If we are certain about any life questions, then—I think at least—we are seeing life through a silo, trapped by our own preconditions and assumptions. How to love or how to be happy or how to live a life full of meaning are all never-ending questions that defy simple answers (if any answers exist at all)—the humility to search for these answers, while still “staying present,” is what leads to continued self-growth and self-discovery through middle age and beyond. (It admittedly can be a hard balance!) Perhaps more importantly, this search is how we connect with others in authentic ways. If we settle on how we think life should be lived or on one definition of best life practices, then we close ourselves to the mysteries of life itself and those around us who also are trying to figure it all out, too. Everyone finds joy or happiness in different ways (and so do babies, it seems!). One of my favorite parts of teaching is that, together, my students and I go on a journey, and each class and each conversation with a young person I learn a little something (and often times a lot of something!) that I did know before.

Ultimately, my foray into parenthood has been my greatest metaphor for life—a never ending quandary, trying to figure out the right combination. Each day I have been encapsulated by the mysteries of my baby: she looks up at me with her tiny eyes, without words, making faces and sounds that I do not (yet) understand. There is beauty in the unknown (albeit frustration of course!), if we allow our minds and hearts to breathe it all in. But it also the larger mysteries of life that provide beauty, too. It is like the firefly you are trying to catch: you see it in front of you and reach out to try to grasp it, but you just miss it every time. But it is that attempt that creates the adrenaline rush; it is that attempt that leads us to keep going, to keep trying, to keep growing, and to keep connecting with others who also recognize that to live life meaningfully is to continue to live life with humility and wonder. To think that we have life “all figured out” or to convince ourselves that there is one way to live, I think, is misguided. There is no perfect answer or combination—to get my baby to sleep or how to exist in this world—and that is okay. There are not supposed to be answers to something as mystical, fascinating, and infinitely exasperating as a newborn. And there are not supposed to be answers to the mysteries of life that are just as beautiful and painful (and sometimes as exasperating): love, happiness, aging, children, death, and so much more. Only guesses, estimates, hypotheses about what feels right, but no answer out of a book to tell us which path to go down or which turn to take. Taking care of babies with the humility they demand may represent a very important milestone (and another momentous chain link in life!), but the enigma that they present—and the humility they demand—is a microcosm of how we should also go about the world once we put the baby to sleep and we go about the world ourselves in our work and in our relationships.  

Coming full circle, these first two weeks have been quite a challenge. There have been moments, of course, of pure bliss and euphoria, holding my beautiful baby girl with so much gratitude and awe, a “thing” that is somehow half me and half the person I love, my wife and life partner. But there are also many, many moments of deep frustration and exasperation—to put it mildly—of not having “the answers” on what to do with her. Babies have a way of humbling you, and having a newborn makes me understand less about life than I did two weeks ago, not more: more uncertain about the boundaries of happiness, more hazy about the countless machinations of love. I love my wife, my mom, my brother, my nephews, my family, my students, and, now, my daughter — and each love is so different in meaning, feeling, and consequence. I assume that I’ll never quite have these answers. There is no rulebook to sort through these different emotions—and, as I try to find some inner peace during this emotional, discordant time, I think that is alright. What has been 35 years of my life searching for more clarity on everything I know about living and existing and being, will be at least another 35 years more of searching, I hope. To be sure, I know that kindness, empathy, love, the importance of dreaming, pursuing goodness, and reflecting on grief, are all essential elements to life but that trying to find the recipe between them and how to put each in practice will always be the perpetual conundrum, easier said than done. So, too, is trying to find exactly the right bottle for my baby so that she goes to sleep without that precious milk coming back up! Because, as my aunt told me the other day, even if I think I figured out the answers with a newborn, the baby will then quickly enter a new phase and I will have a host of new questions—a cycle that never ends in each stage of their lives but in our lives, too.

So, instead of trying to “find” the perfect answers to life’s pressing questions, perhaps we should be more content not-knowing; certainly we should be searching, looking, thinking, reflecting, loving, questioning, spending as much time as possible with those who bring us joy, but not demanding or being frustrated when no answer or singular experience seems sufficient or enough. Sometimes—perhaps most times!—there are no concrete answers, and, as I am reminded of that each moment with my newborn, that is, well, okay. Taking care of my baby has taught me the ultimate life lesson: it has to be okay to not know. It has to be okay to not have the answers. It has to be okay to simply try our best, knowing that our best really can be good enough. It is what makes us human—the true reality of humanity is living in that constant grey, muddling in uncertainty of life’s larger questions as we simultaneously cherish life’s little moments like I wrote over a decade ago. As I take a deep breath and go upstairs to soothe my baby, wondering what she is thinking (and why she is crying!), I have to remind myself that it is okay to not be sure. And if you are not sure about babies—or about anything in life—well, then, I will be right there with you by your side.

(Oh, but if you do have any advice for dealing with a newborn or being a parent, please still let me know!)

Searching for Empathy in Troubling Times

I wanted to write a blog after the beyond-tragic Buffalo shooting on May 14, but I could not find the right words. They seemed to just loiter on the page, the synapses of my brain unable to fuse them together, my heart too heavy to immediately soldier on. So, as I sat and reflected on this recent event for days, discussed with my hundreds of students, and read more and more news reports, I continued to struggle with what I could add to the conversation about race, about guns, about society, about all of this senseless death. After all, nearly two years ago, I wrote about George Floyd’s murder. Those words stand strong and true, and it is among the works that I am proudest of. On this topic, there is not much more that I felt like I could say about the stench of white supremacy and racism in this country, particularly against Black Americans, that other more prolific scholars have said both in academic texts and countless op-eds across all our major outlets. So, I set my proverbial pen aside, and funneled my energy into supporting my students in the classroom.

And then, 10 days later, another sickening tragedy occurred. When I found out about the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, I was teaching a class: mid-lecture, pacing the classroom of 125 earnest college students, thinking about hope and young people and schools, and then one of my students shared the events with the class out loud. I pulled up the news report and my heart dropped. Absolute shock hit me all over. I felt dizzy and nauseated. Up in front of the class, I felt paralyzed: I did not know what to do in that moment, or what to say to the class. Weeks later, I am still not sure what to fully say to my students, my friends, or myself. (I do know, however, that we urgently need to take action with sensible gun safety policies, and understand how our broken politics prevent such laws from passing.) My shock during that class then turned into visceral anger that another mass shooting happened again (like the anger expressed by this NBA head coach). The next morning, most (but not all of course) of that anger turned into sadness and profound grief. I read a few articles about the children, saw their faces, listened to their parents’ stories, and tears started to fall. It was hard to read and watch and listen. It still is exceedingly hard to do so without losing myself in an otherworldly sadness. On one hand, I feel as if I cannot endure seeing this pain and the emotions such stories elicit. At the same time, as the weeks have gone by, I feel like I have an obligation *to* listen to the stories of parents who tragically lost their beautiful children, and to share even in their tiniest bit of agony.

Why have I felt this way? What is this intrinsic desire to have a shared emotional reaction that feels necessary, even just? Following Uvalde, I again wanted to write something, to try and comprehend something that in reality is so incomprehensible. But, similarly, the words lifted beyond me. Like I did after the Buffalo shooting, I pulled together a list of resources for my students to help them contextualize gun violence, resigned to let experts and advocates in this subject discuss the overdue need for reform to save our children.

But, it’s my birthday today—and in what has seemingly become a tradition, I reflect on the year that was, and as I do so, I cannot separate my birthday reflection from recent events of the past few weeks: the tragedies that have stirred my soul (and my conscience) in combination with what another year means in my life journey. I have indeed added another “chain link” to this journey, and in a world with senseless gun violence, a million Covid-19 deaths, and so much more, I am incredibly grateful to be here, present, thinking, and, most of all, feeling. To feel is what makes us human; to feel is to bring meaning to life; to feel is to have empathy, and empathy is what has been the missing ingredient, I believe, to all our conversations about Buffalo, Uvalde, and ourselves. As I have struggled to write about either of these events, I realize it is the idea of empathy that I have needed to write about all along.

*****

In a few weeks, I will begin my summer course at the University of California, Irvine, in the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program, teaching a group of nearly 40 optimistic future educators who are earning a Masters degree and teaching credential, and who, in 14 months, will be teaching in their own K-12 classroom. I am extremely excited, but I also take this responsibility in helping educate our future teachers very seriously. What do I say to them about feeling safe in their future classrooms after Uvalde? What do I teach them about racism in the diverse schools they will teach in after Buffalo? Where do I go intellectually and emotionally each week as these young people look to me to guide them as they begin to fulfill their dreams of a teaching career? How do I tell my students who want to teach and change lives that their leaders care more about banning books than banning guns? How do I explain to them the fact that teachers were acting as heroes while police, who have sworn to protect them, did not do so?

To be sure, we will learn about the history of education, about educational inequality, about the contours, structures, and changes in and of America’s school systems. My training and advanced degrees have prepared me for that. But, more importantly, we will also learn about empathy (and I’d like to think that love and wisdom from my family has prepared me for this, particularly my grandfather Ted). We will learn about the struggles of different groups of students across time, place, and space. We will learn about the successes, too. Collectively, as a class, we will probe our own journeys, and learn from each others’ experiences: how we got to this moment so that we can live the next moment with great kindness and love.

Mostly, though, it is empathy that I hope my students and these future teachers learn in my class more than any concept or theme about education because I believe that empathy is not only the most important concept for young people to learn about, but the connective tissue of our society. It is empathy that, in reflection of such tragedies—and in reflection of my birthday—that I feel is the most formidable ingredient to a better life and a better world. Empathy allows us to see the world from another person’s perspective: empathy has no bias, no discrimination, no agenda other than a prescription of perpetual compassion. Empathy is love. Empathy is care. Empathy is the brain’s magic because it inherently leads to action—empathy triggers emotions that make us want to do “something” even when we feel powerless or when change might feel out of reach.

I am under no illusion that empathy could have stopped Buffalo or Uvalde or the countless other gun-related massacres in our schools, public spaces, or homes. (To be absolutely clear: common sense gun safety laws are needed. For example, California, which has some of the stricter gun laws, has 60% less gun deaths than Texas. We even mostly know who are the prime suspects to commit these types of murders. Again, nowhere on Earth does this happen except in the United States.) Nor do I think that empathy alone can solve all our societal ills (as there is immense evil in the not-so-dark corners of the internet and even promoted by some politicians). But perhaps empathy can help. Violence can only happen in the absence of empathy. It is impossible to want to kill or hurt someone when empathy is present. Empathy is like a powerful force field that, while not impenetrable—unconscious rage, mental sickness, gun technology, and the many evils displayed throughout history certainly prove otherwise—can serve as a shield against inflicting pain on another individual. Only a person who cannot empathize with the struggles, or the differences, or the experiences of another who is not like them, can commit such atrocities.

Certainly, these are extreme examples that are at the forefront of my conscience at the moment. However, I also think about empathy a lot in less extreme scenarios when considering our current partisanship and division in society. If it is the provocation of fear—of an immigrant, a stranger, someone of a different race or speaks a different language—that (unfortunately) serves as a powerful catalyst for selfish actions and violent policies that inflict pain on certain groups, then it is empathy that can act as fear’s kryptonite. Empathy forces us to commit to actions and policies that consider all people, not just some (or ourselves). While there are many examples, one recent example of empathy sticks out. Back in March, the state of Utah passed a bill that would ban transgender athletes from participating in girls sports. The Republican governor, Spencer Cox, vetoed the bill, receiving immense criticism from Republicans in his state (which he knew would happen). And, his reasoning for vetoing the bill was notable. (As an educator, I have taught many transgender students and students who identify as LGBTQ+, and their resilience and brilliance inspires me. To be clear, it saddens me that this even has to be a discussion.) In his letter of why he vetoed the bill, Governor Cox explained that: “Four kids and only one of them playing girls sports. That’s what this is all about. Four kids who aren’t dominating or winning trophies or taking scholarships. Four kids who are just trying to find some friends and feel like they are a part of something. Four kids trying to get through each day. Rarely has so much fear and anger been directed at so few. I don’t understand what they are going through or why they feel the way they do. But I want them to live. And all the research shows that even a little acceptance and connection can reduce suicidality significantly [as 86% of trans youth report feeling suicidal].”

Governor Cox admitted he did not understand fully why transgender youth feel as they do about their sexual or gender identity—in a less populous state like Utah, perhaps he has never interacted with a transgender person—but he was able to empathize with their struggles and consider their experiences even if he cannot relate to them. It is this empathy that then allowed him to step back and recognize that this policy would hurt a group a people he, admittedly, knew little about. And, that’s okay! Learning from each other is good, it is right. To participate in the collective experience of being human, of caring about the lives and feelings of others, to consider that my experience may not reflect someone else’s, is the path forward to authentically respecting each other’s differences. It is the path forward to living together cooperatively in a diverse society such as ours.

I do not have the answers to complicated questions of gender discrimination or racism or disability rights for students in schools or any of the myriad of complex issues we face as a world. But being empathic at least allows to consider these questions honestly just like Governor Cox did—and consider how any policy or personal decision we make (or personal opinion we hold) tangibly affects others. This is the power of empathy at work! Empathy brings meaning to our lives, but it also serves as a practical tool—perhaps the most important tool we have—for both our co-existence and a better existence.

Yet, empathy also build relationships and fosters hope. Empathy is a characteristic that the strongest people possess: it takes strength to realize what you are going through is not the same as someone else, to sideline your survival habitual instincts of “fight or flight” to truly see someone else’s struggles or perspectives. It takes strength to recognize that we may have to give up a little bit of something to make someone else’s life better, or, perhaps in the case of gun safety, a little bit safer. I think it is human nature to justify any opinion or action that we do that puts ourselves first; we constantly rationalize that what are actions are “fine” or enough or, again, justified, because of some inner belief about our individual existence. But empathy allows us to question these rationalizations; empathy forces us to tap into our emotions and into our heart to recognize that the path to individual and collective prosperity is not alone, but together. Like I wrote about the power of kindness many years ago, empathy is not weakness, but instead the ultimate source of strength.

So, I hope you teach and practice the art of empathy: to care about others and seek out understanding of those who have experiences and feelings that you might not identify with or even understand. Because to do so is not only essential to our public policy, but it allows us to better understand the fragility of our own life and those we care about. To truly connect with another person on a deeply emotional level is a powerful out-of-body experience. To laugh or cry with someone—a friend, a family member, a stranger—is immensely gratifying. These moments, perhaps these “little moments” as I wrote a decade ago, are beautiful beyond reproach. Fancy cars and fancy dinners might be enjoyable, but engaging in a true empathic experience is to experience the full breadth of the human condition. Empathy provides something that no other material “thing” can: it is essence of not just existing, but living. At the end of the day, all we have is each other and the empathy we share.

Coming full circle, this year has been a year of exploring empathy for me: trying to better understand how I can practice empathy in my daily work, how I can best use the privileges I have to care for others, and how I can find meaning amidst one of the most challenging years of my professional life and a slew of unimaginable tragedies all around me. Again, I do not have all the (or any!) answers, but I know that to every question, the need for empathy as part of the solution is nestled in there somewhere. Because by practicing empathy, I can at least share in the collective process of finding these answers—to racism, to gun violence, to the meaning of life—with those around me: both those I love and know intimately, and with those strangers I have never met. That’s a empowering feeling. As I begin my next year where new challenges await, in these trying times, empathy will be my guiding light, my North Star. I hope it will be yours, too.

A Recommendation: "The Peace Chronicles"

Hello friends,

One of my dear mentors, the brilliant and inspiring Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, Professor of English Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, has recently released her second full-length book of poems. Like her first poetry collection, Love from the Vortex & Other Poems, which I reviewed here, this new collection aptly entitled The Peace Chronicles is another magnificent work. I was so honored to read it and I was again so deeply touched by her poems. They are stunning in their rawness, honest, humility, and beauty (both pain and joy). If you are interested in purchasing of copy of Dr. Sealey-Ruiz’s book The Peace Chronicles, you can do so here on Amazon.com or directly through her publisher here. Below I put together a few thoughts about the book. I wrote more than a typical book “review,” but it moved me so much that the words flowed out of me as I reflected on her poems.

---

A Review of The Peace Chronicles

Pain. Happiness. Struggle. Love. Peace. How do we explain such infinitely complex and timeless concepts? We feel these emotions; we struggle with them; we get lost in them. We endlessly search for some, and tirelessly try to escape others. In Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz’s second full-length collection of poems, The Peace Chronicles, Sealey-Ruiz again takes the reader on an unfiltered journey through the depths of her heart as she strives to transcend the pain of a past relationship.

The book begins following the conclusion of her first poetry collection, Love from the Vortex & Other Poems, as Sealey-Ruiz documents in rich, raw, intimate detail about how her love, Tyrone, betrayed her. Her words cut sharply right from the book’s first pages. As she writes in the prologue: “Free from lies / free from loyalty to uncommitment / vacillating temperaments / disappearing acts of love / that hold tight to empty promises.” In the pages to follow, Sealey-Ruiz transcribes in vivid detail the hurt that Tyrone caused her: “I task my heart with discovering how to remove the pain you’ve caused— / How to leave behind your mark undone.” Like her triumph in Love from the Vortex & Other Poems, Sealey-Ruiz again opens up her heart like a vessel, where the reader does not just peer into it from a distance or from behind the looking-glass, but is placed right beside her, as if the searing emotions in which she is sharing on the page are your emotions as well. To be able to feel the depths of such emotion speaks to the beauty of her soul. But, then, somehow, to so magnificently capture those emotions through writing is magical, even ethereal. To possess the courage to find the words to describe this hurt—here, for much of the book, in her betrayal by her once-partner Tyrone—is prodigious. The vividness of the pain that I felt by Tyrone’s betrayal, just by reading, was stunning. 

As Sealey-Ruiz continues to expound over the betrayal of Tyrone and her internal pilgrimage to overcome it, she sprinkles in powerful poems that grapple with her complicated relationship with her late father, about being a powerful Black woman in a society that remains saturated by racism, and about the boundless joys of motherhood. These poems further reveal her entire essence, and provide a fuller portrait of the mechanisms in which she is able to search for peace—for peace cannot be achieved, and one’s pain cannot be transcended, until one’s self is fully understood. Each of these sources of identity—her Blackness, her identity as a daughter or mother, and, yes, her past relationship with Tyrone—each make up the many layers of this essence. While some of these identities may seem unique to her set of experiences, and many certainly are, if we search honestly within ourselves, we realize that the search for identity is universal. Sealey-Ruiz provides us all a guidepost of how to search within ourselves, because, again, in order to find peace, we must find who we truly are—we must know all the interlocking puzzle pieces of our mind, body, heart, and soul.

And, that is what is so beautiful about Sealey-Ruiz’s poems: we can have such drastically different life experiences, but yet be able to relate so intimately and effortlessly to the words on the page. There is a ubiquity to her words that remains so striking: we all feel pain, we all want joy, we all strive to love and be loved. Because, while her poems might be about Tyrone, they are not actually about Tyrone: they are about her, and her struggle to find peace within (or perhaps beyond) that relationship, to find peace within the world, and, most of all, to find peace within herself. The Peace Chronicles is not a book of poetry about peace, but about finding peace. It is this subtlety that is so ground-breaking and so powerful to read, for Sealey-Ruiz’s candor, rawness, and humility shines on each page. As she writes in “Life and Death” in the chapter aptly titled “Peacemaking:” “I sit and watch the sad as it passes. I say goodbye to the loneliness / & in my strength I return to self love. I comfort myself. Just as I have done before. Just as I always will.” Sealey-Ruiz’s magnificent ability to take us on this journey from the abyss of betrayal into an equilibrium of peace is, quite simply, an astonishing lyrical feat: each poem moving, each stanza purposeful, each word so precisely placed. There is a beautiful rhyme and verse to each and every poem. As I quickly turned from page to page, I could not help but to periodically take a deep breath to marvel at this collection—and marvel in the range of emotions that it brought out in me and made me feel. I was both paralyzed and enchanted at different moments by the words on these pages, reading the book in one sitting from start to finish.

By the end of the book, Sealey-Ruiz takes the scars of her past, and instead of hiding them or seeing them as blemishes, embraces them in her journey to find the peace that seemed out of her grasp at the beginning of the book. “Steady healing, already willing— / My heart has learned what it looks / like, feels like, to do the work / of forgiveness so that it can be open / to love again.”

In my own life, I often wonder if I will able to be to find true peace, personally, professionally, and beyond. Perhaps I am not alone in feeling this way. But what this new journey that Sealey-Ruiz takes us on helped me further realize, is that to truly find peace requires honest, raw introspection. We cannot shield or hide from our deepest pain or our deepest fears—about life, about love, about loneliness—but, instead, confront them, because, on the other side of these inner battles is the potential to experience the highest joys. Ultimately, being able to experience these waves of feelings—personal sojourns even—are what make us human. Sealey-Ruiz realizes that our most intimate hurt and our most euphoric bliss is not mutually exclusive; these feelings are interwoven into the fabric of our lives and the fabric of our souls. Sometimes, in the complexity of life, one may lead to the other. As Sealey-Ruiz demonstrates by lived example in this book, when we allow ourselves to grapple with our despair, this reflection paves way for healing and, yes, perhaps authentic peace, even if imperfectly in this imperfect world. The Peace Chronicles is a work of brilliant lyrical melodies page after page—a stunning mosaic of a person’s quest for peace—and, like her first collection, is another work of monumental courage and bravery. It is fitting that in the final poem of the book, entitled “Where I’m From,” Sealey-Ruiz announces herself, reinvented after her journey, and reborn once again with vigor, boldness, and hope.

May we all be so fortunate to learn from her many examples in this book, and through her existence, of how to live fully, love forever, and find our own inner peace.

Adding a Link to the Chain of Life

I think it’s fair to say that this has been a year unlike any other, and as a mentor once taught me, it is important to critically reflect on where we have been so we know who we are and where we are going. Or, as the magnificent scholar (and my dear friend) Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz might put it, to build an “archaeology of self.” My birthday always provides an opportunity to do that, but in a year like this, it is hard to know where to start and how this year even fits into the story of my life.

I always think of a person’s past as a patchwork: foggy images that spark more questions than answers, complex feelings—both real and semi-imagined—of joy, excitement, sadness, and pain that become flattened by the weight of time, and fragmented stories that we reconstruct to fit a larger preferred narrative of ourselves. It all can be a bit confusing. And, as we get older, experience life in different ways, and go through trauma—individually or collectively—it all gets even messier. Beautiful memories, hopefully, abound within this patchwork too, and I have been fortunate to have far more of the latter than the former, even within this turbulent year. In this way, our memories—and who we are—seem to be like building blocks, each stacking on top of the other to construct our sense of self.

But what if we conceptualize our prior experiences in a different way? What if there is an even better analogy? What if, instead of looking at our life as building blocks, our memories—our past—are like those little paper chain links that we used to make as children, with all different colors, designs, sizes, and shapes. I hazily remember in pre-school how each of us would cut, fold, “design,” and glue these various loops together. My “loop” in green construction paper would probably be big and hastily glued together, another child’s purple construction paper “loop” might be smaller in curl; my “design” might have crayon drawings, another child’s might have little gold stickers. This simple activity was rudimentary, primitive even, but somehow so pure. A class chain beautifully represented all the children in that shared community, each child’s innocence and unique gifts captured in the individual construction of each loop. But they also, collectively, represented the whole class, each one essential to forming a full portrait of who made up this one-of-a-kind group. No class chain would ever be alike.

Reflecting on this difficult year makes me think about these seemingly silly pre-school paper loops as a powerful microscope into my own essence—and how this year, and every year, makes us who we are in collaboration with those around us. What if each year is a loop? What if my loop connected to others? What would my loop for this year look like? Those are good questions! To be sure, my loop would be scribbled with experiences that are too numerous to name: immensely joyful moments shared with my wife in quarantine combined with our own individual challenges with remote work, wonderfully rewarding moments with my students but also the severe exhaustion of a year (and more) of virtual teaching, and constant moments of sadness for the unthinkable and incomprehensible loss of life and sickness throughout the world that the pandemic has caused. (I like to think that this year has helped me further appreciate the fragility of life.) This year has also, unfortunately, again proven the injustice and ignorance of too many in this world; the endemic winds of hatred and bigotry continuing to swirl. If this year was the first pandemic in over a century, then this year was also sadly just “another” year of the long-running epidemic of racial injustice—which I wrote about in a long, sweeping blog last birthday—as well as the most horrific, treasonous attack on American democracy (and an inclusive vision of democracy) since the Civil War. I could write endlessly by detailing the human rights abuses at home and abroad this year that should remain at the forefront of our conscience. I could also write endlessly by highlighting the countless examples of goodness and light in our communities and our world—including what I witness daily from my remarkable students who constantly emit so much hope and promise. There is no shortage of notable events, big and small, local and national, in which to reflect and analyze the year itself. (I am grateful for the many researchers and journalists who do just that.)

But our loops are, ultimately, about us. The events surrounding us influence how we might design our loops—and, in a momentous year like this, what size those loops might be—but the happenings of this turbulent year do little to explain our individual growth or define our overall spirit. Because when a child designs his or her loop as part of the class, that child has little knowledge of how that loop will influence the whole chain. Will it stand out? Will it accidentally create a colored pattern? Will it match or clash with its neighboring link? Will it become the anchor that hangs in the corner of the classroom? These questions will remain unanswered until that chain link is completed. That is how I think about my past year, and my life, on another birthday. I am not quite sure how my most recently completed link will fit with the rest of my links—my previous ones and my future ones—but I know that I must create it.

In trying times, it can seem natural to erase a year, to forget, to try and bury it unseen. Despite these inclinations, I am not sure that we can—even if we want to. Each link is part of our own chain link of life: our DNA, our past, our story. This year may not (or may!) have been a landmark year, but it is a year—like every year—that changed us in some way, somehow, for better or for worse. It’s another link in life. And, if you cut one link, the rest of your chain collapses—and perhaps the chain of your loved ones, too. That’s the thing about links: they attach to others, and we are all nothing if we are not connected to those around us, literally and spiritually, both near and far.

In a less busy time—in a time when I was not swamped with teaching and grading and managing a fourth straight virtual term in the final week of my semester!—I might be able to provide a bit more reflective insight on the larger meaning of my past year, and this particular loop of life. But, for now, I know of its presence, another attachment, another link, another part of my ongoing story, another fragment of my life, paradoxically inconsequential and absolutely essential. And, one day I’ll be able to look back with the benefit of hindsight and see how this particular loop influenced my whole chain. I hope that, despite the trials of this year, that this loop will still be filled with dreams, with love, and above all, with great kindness.

So, as I will try to do on this particular birthday, I would encourage you to think about what would be on your “loop” of this past year. And, you don’t have to try and find meaning right now. Perhaps it is too unwieldy to do so; perhaps the scars of this year have not yet healed. Life is too fluid, too inexact, too complex to fully understand the significance of any one moment on the course of your life at the time of impact. But, hopefully, you can add this year’s loop to your chain of life like I intend to do, and one day you will also be able to look back and see how the particular link from this perplexing year influenced who you are and who you might still become.

I am not sure what my 2020-2021 link means quite yet, but I know that it is there, holding the rest of my years—and those around me like my wife, my family, and my students—forever all together.

Striving for Humanity, Justice, and Freedom

I have wanted to write this post for days. I start, and then I stop, and then I start again. But my words always seem to be meaningless, a vexing puzzle of emotions that seem incongruent with words on a page. Nothing seems to meet the magnitude of the moment; my words fall prey to the weight of such overwhelming sadness and anger. Plus, I could not find purpose in sharing another post, by another white person, in another online format that is talk, not action.

But, the burden I bear is light. The anguish I feel is minor. The problem of “purpose” is a source of immense racial privilege in that my skin color allows me to have this internal quandary in the first place. Because, after all, it’s my birthday today. And I get to be alive to experience it. George Floyd will not get to celebrate his birthday ever again. Neither will Breonna Taylor (she would have been 27 just a few days ago), or Ahmaud Arbery, or Sandra Bland, or Trayvon Martin, or Oscar Grant. But, I do. On this day, I have the opportunity to hug my partner, call my mom, and teach my students. George Floyd and countless others will not be able to do those simple acts on their birthdays or any day at all. They were not able to even exist. They were killed by people—the police—sworn to protect them, deceived by laws and by leaders that promised them equal protection and liberties that some people—white people like me—get to enjoy each day, without even thinking about it, like the air we breathe. George Floyd was not granted that simple act of living. He was not allowed to exist in America. He, quite literally, was not even able to breathe in his own country.

So, as an educator and historian, I am adding to the chorus of commentaries, beyond sharing social media posts and curating important history lessons for my students (although, the latter has kept me extremely busy at this moment since our semester is still going on!). It is true white people all have to speak and act. That includes me. I am encouraged by the countless editorials, interviews, how-to guides, reading lists, resources, and scholarship (which are not new) geared toward white people to help them become educated about whiteness, white privilege, and racial injustice. Understanding a person’s racial identity and how our race influences how we see and experience the world is a continual process, and one that I am constantly renegotiating all the time. This is not a “snap-your-fingers” moment, but, again, a process. And, it is up to white folks, in their own white spaces, to go through that process of critical self-reflection and independent learning; it is up to them, to us, to interrogate our biases and engage in “uncomfortable” conversations. (I should add that I believe much of this learning should be grounded in historical perspectives.) These processes do not need to be advertised or applauded; nor do our private actions that advance the cause of racial justice. White people like myself should not seek to re-center ourselves in the narrative of justice (which is one reason why I avoid the word white “ally” because it too often does just that it). It is not about our “feelings” as there is really no level of empathy that can help us understand what it feels like to be Black in America. (After all it’s an immense privilege to have the choice to learn about racism than to forcibly experience it every day.) Thus, it is about doing the work on our own—and then taking action in whatever form that takes, because only through action can we actually further the cause of justice.

As so many others have eloquently explained, it not enough to just be “not racist,” either. To be “not racist” is to be complicit in maintaining the status quo—a status quo which has perpetuated violence against Black Americans for over 400 years and that Black Americans have been pleading for white Americans to understand for these same centuries. Thus, we must be anti-racist (again, to paraphrase others, most notably historian Ibram X. Kendi in his important book How to be an Antiracist)—we must actively work to combat racism. The literature and discussion on this is powerful, and I encourage you to think about what being anti-racist truly means. But, we must also understand that what we are seeing is not just racism, but anti-Blackness—it is our original sin and our current one. To understand American history is to understand that being Black in America connotes a certain type of oppression that has deep roots in the fabric of this country. It would be impossible in this essay to recount all the number of ways this is true—in education, in housing, in employment, in wealth, in the private sector, in health disparities and of course, in the criminal justice system, to just name a few—and any denial of this past and present is beyond reproach.

Still, there have been moments in history where real progress against this anti-Blackness has been made—Reconstruction and the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, for example—after intense struggle and against the backdrop of white resistance (and violence). I believe we are at a milestone moment where the gears of progress are renewed, the long struggle for justice revived. And, so, when I think about this moment and what a more collective re-envisioning of American democracy looks like, those on the side of justice must do a number of things. One, at the bare minimum, is to take immediate steps to stop police brutality through common-sense, data-driven reforms such as 8Can’tWait and Campaign Zero that would lower the number of police killings and reform the unfair protections police have. However, these reforms assume that police can be “reformed” in the first place when, in reality, we know that these problems are far more systemic, widespread, and rooted in racism (not just “bad” laws). Thus, two, we have to engage in serious conversations about divesting in police and significantly restructuring police departments across the country. This includes re-thinking the role of police in the first place and perhaps abolishing police all together in favor of community safety. Consider, on average, that less than 5% of all arrests are violent crimes and less than 1% are murders. So, it probably makes sense to allow police to, at best, have a narrowly-defined set of responsibilities—and then, allow other specialists to perform roles more tailored to them, such as having trained counselors help with issues of substance abuse and not police officers. There are countless examples of this across sectors. (As I’ve written before, what keep us safe is not the police, but a belief in a social contract—a mutual respect for each other to allow us to live our lives. Perhaps we need to think differently about public safety in our communities altogether.) Police department budgets often make up one-third of all city budgets—that’s hundreds of millions of dollars that could be going to schools, toward healthcare, toward actually creating safe communities. In reality, wealthier communities are safer not because they have a greater police presence, but because they have more resources such as education, healthcare, access to jobs, and more. There is also the education component, making sure people who become police officers, but also firefighters, nurses, entrepreneurs, and so on, understand the breadth of discrimination throughout American history. For example, specifically, over 80% of all police, firefighters, and EMTs graduate from California community colleges. I take seriously my responsibility to make sure these students—my students—understand the full weight of American history and strategies for how to be anti-racist in their vocations. To be sure, I don’t have all the answers nor do I pretend to. I hope out of this movement comes a compete rethinking of the role (or lack thereof) of police in a more just society by urban planning experts, policymakers, and community-members who are much more well-versed in this area than me. This unceasing epidemic has to stop.

However, there is also one more incidental “thing” that I hope comes out of this moment that is less concrete but also important and speaks to my historical lens: a re-claiming of the word freedom and the meaning of what it means to be American. As we pursue policies that inch us toward “liberty and justice for all,” we should do so under the guise of freedom. As I will explain, perhaps we can create what the brilliant Rev. William Barber terms a “third Reconstruction”—a diverse, widespread movement of people from all walks of life to reconstruct the nation into a fully equitable multi-racial society. The optimist in me—perhaps aided by my whiteness—believes that this goal could finally come true, the memory of George Floyd becoming the spark that could create a lasting bend in the “arc of moral justice” in the months and years ahead. (Or, more accurately, in the words of Nikole Hannah-Jones, another Black American has had to die “in order to force white Americans to recognize our humanity.”)

As my director at the Institute for Urban and Minority Education (IUME), Dr. Erica Walker at Columbia University recently wrote, this is a “revolution in real time.” Let’s not waste it.

*****

On the first day of all my history classes, I always introduce a few key themes—racial oppression, activism and struggle for equality, access to democracy and meanings of citizenship, to name a few—followed by an informal list of questions that will flow throughout each unit. One of those questions asks: what does it mean to be an American and who gets to be “considered” an American? These might seem like simple questions, but the answers have always been highly contested. In fact, they have changed over time. At this country’s founding, whether a person was truly seen as American—with the rights and privileges therein—was based on a person’s race, gender, religion, and class. Rich (and property-owning), white, protestant males were recognized as Americans: they participated in “democracy” and could be citizens, both in terms of rights but also in terms of their human existence. Over time, however, through various reforms and an expansion of democratic ideals, slowly—and not without intense, often violent, struggle—many groups gained wider acceptance into American society. For some groups, this happened fairly quickly; for others, it took generations, but for Black Americans, it never happened at all.

So, in my opinion, what has remained almost unchanged in this original construction of our nation’s American identity is the characteristic of race, and specifically, anti-Blackness. To be American—literally, written in one of the first federal laws in 1790—was to be white. This, I believe, is still the case today. This is why Black Americans are seen as outsiders in the country they built and have lived on for tens of generations. (And, it’s why, even though I am only a third-generation American, nobody asks me where I am “from”—I am just “American” but a “Chinese-American” or “Mexican-American” or, yes, “African-American” have dashes in front of their American-ness. All three groups have been in American far longer than many, if not most, white Americans like me!) The correlation of American-ness to whiteness is also why LeBron James can be told to “shut up and dribble” and have racial slurs graffitied on his house, but white athletes’ opinions are sacred and their homes untainted. And, of course, it is why George Floyd can die at the hands of a police officer, in a country where being Black does not equate to full citizenship. It never has, in fact. George Floyd, in his 46 years of life, was never seen as an American in society. He (and all the other Black men and women killed while those that committed the crime are still free) did not have the same legal protections or “seen” as American by the majority of the nation. He life—his Black life—did not have the same value as a white life. The callousness in which we, as a society, disregard Black Americans—including the passing around of George Floyd’s death as if he was less than human—speaks to centuries of internalized, often unconscious, dehumanization of people who do not have white skin. It is only possible for such a video to be shared so widely because we have become normalized to seeing violence enacted on Black Americans. The truth is, is that George Floyd was never able to be American in the way that I get to be every day. That was true in his life, and that was true in his death.

Still, we have tried to remove this original vestige of oppression previous times throughout history—and, at various times, we made notable progress! In the middle of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln, in his Gettysburg Address (and through the outcome of the war), sought a re-envisioning of America away from whiteness. As he laid out, to be American should no longer be about a person’s whiteness—a shared white skin color—but instead, about believing in a common set of ideals: democracy, equality, justice. To be American was about upholding these sacred ideals—that is what being American was all about, about sharing these beliefs, not sharing a common skin color. This is why historians call the Civil War the “Second American Revolution” because the first American republic—one built on slavery—was destroyed. And, what followed was, in my opinion, the most important time period in American history called Reconstruction, from 1865 from 1877. For a moment, those ideals around a new American-ness looked like they might come true! Laws were passed that expanded citizenship and equality to Black Americans (and other non-Black men, too); thousands of Black Americans were elected to public office. Leaders like President Ulysses S. Grant, Senator Charles Sumner, and Congressman Thaddeus Stevens fought voraciously to protect the full rights of Black Americans—to fight for their inclusion into the American experiment. While great progress was made during those years, unfortunately, it did not last, and a century of Jim Crow, lynchings, violent massacres, and widespread exclusion from American society followed.

But, then, after decades of Black Americans (and their allies) fighting against these injustices all throughout the 20th century, in the 1950s and the 1960s, there was another moment to try and uproot racism and fight against anti-Blackness. Even operating under the constant threat of white violence, the 1960s “Civil Rights Movement” saw a brilliant web of mass organizing, legal battles, and civil rights legislation. (I should also note that key to this movement’s success was voting—in many ways the cornerstone of the whole enterprise—as well as gaining a deep understanding of process and the various levers of democratic power.) Despite the virulent racism and resistance—and murders of Black and white activists—it seemed possible that, finally, Black Americans would have the full rights of American citizenship at least under the law. Then there was hope that perhaps with these legal protections, they would also be seen as American. A person who could not sit on the bus freely or sit anywhere of their choosing in a restaurant or who attended a dilapidated segregated school was not a person who had his or her humanity fully recognized. Sadly—but perhaps with the benefit of hindsight, not surprisingly—Black Americans continued to be excluded from American society in the years after this movement in countless ways. Although significant gains and very important progress was made, white flight, “de facto segregation,” years of mass incarceration and the “war on drugs,” housing and employment discrimination, unequal schooling, and, yes, habitual police brutality proved that Black Americans were still not seen as fully American.

Another movement has been needed. And, I think it might just be here.

*****

It often said that no two movements are alike. After all, it’s not 1868. It’s not 1968. It’s not even 1992 or 2014. It’s 2020, and our country is different than it was when these past movements happened. Our country is far more diverse than it ever has been, and young people more transient and more urbanized than ever before. Whether in reality or in perception, social media has caused young people all across the world to be connected and to be exposed to injustice together—and over and over again. Moreover, the current protests have featured far more white people than any movement in the past; perhaps such participation can be a turning point in sharing the immense burden of moving justice forward that Black Americans have always carried for so long. Even the polls show a greater acknowledgement and understanding of what is at stake. Although both aforementioned movements were notably interracial, what were are seeing in terms of these sustained protests all across the country is nothing short of unprecedented—a multicultural movement unlike anything we’ve seen before. As legal scholar Michelle Alexander just wrote in searing prose—her essay is a masterclass in the history of inequality and a reading list of how to tackle it—this is America’s chance to finally get democracy right.

Yet, just because this movement is different, does not mean we should overlook past lessons. One of those lessons is that we must march, organize, donate, strategize, teach, reflect, and participate in this movement under the banner of freedom. Although the Civil War began as a war about keeping the country together, it soon became a war for freedom—the seminal event in American history that ended slavery and freed 4 million slaves. Similarly, the 1960s, and the prior decades of activism throughout the 1900s, is referred to as the “Black Freedom Struggle.” Protesters in the street waved American flags, and Black leaders rightfully claimed this word as their own (as they had for generations). During the Civil Rights Movement, the language of freedom resonated through Black communities and their allies: freedom to vote and have fair representation, freedom to get a job and be treated fairly; freedom to go a well-resourced neighborhood school; freedom to be on a jury; freedom to treated with respect; freedom to just live in peace.  

Today, the world freedom is rarely associated anymore with racial justice, civil rights, or those seeking equality. That should change. This movement, today, like in the Civil War and in the 1960s, is a movement for freedom: freedom for Black Americans from discrimination and without being killed because of the color of their skin. For those on the side of justice, this is our word, and we must reclaim it. No longer should racists, white supremacists, and those who seek to maintain the status quo get to co-opt it with hatred and bigotry. Nor should those who hide between self-interest and ignorance claim it either. As I think about the third “thing” that I believe should come out of this moment, it is this powerful reframing of what freedom actually should mean, not just for now, but forever.

When I think about who is American, I think of people in the streets marching for justice, marching for this long-elusive freedom. The images of mass protests, of young people marching in every city and state with such voracity and spirit inspires me beyond words. However, so do the millions of people supporting this movement in other ways, financially, organizationally, educationally, and beyond—educators putting in overtime to change their institutions, business leaders re-dedicating their entire company to supporting racial justice, local councilmembers, community organizers, and researchers doing the hands-on policy work to actually make tangible change. This courageous multicultural, multifaceted spectrum of people are true American patriots, sacrificing their time, money, energy, and even their health (in this pandemic) to stand up for what is right. And, so, when I think of patriotism, yes, I certainly think of the brave women and men in our military, who bravely fight abroad for the idea of American freedom to exist. But, I also think of the people working here at home to make sure American freedom happens in practice. As Nikole Hannah-Jones wrote in her groundbreaking 1619 Project, by virtue of tirelessly pushing to make this country live up to the eloquent ideas of liberty, justice, and freedom, it is Black Americans who have been the “most American of all.” It is these goals that, in my mind, should be what it means to be American.

Thus, to me, it is time to choose a side—there are people who seek to join together to fight against racial oppression that has plagued this country since its birth, or there are people who seek to go against our constitution and against freedom. Also deeply ingrained in our history is a rich current of activism and relentless struggle for equality. It is deeply “American” to try to make the country a better, more inclusive, and more tolerant society that grants true freedom to all of citizens, white, Asian, Latinx, indigenous, and Black. It is these efforts over time, incomplete and imperfect as they were, that have made America closer to its constitutional claims and idealistic ideas. People who actively fought against these efforts—almost uniformly white people throughout history—have always been on the wrong “side” of history. It is trite to say, but it is no less true. A strong majority of Americans disliked Martin Luther King, Jr. at the time of his assassination; he was hated, reviled, deemed far too radical. Only decades later did his popularity rise and his name universally praised. But, that is revisionism (at best): those who opposed MLK and opposed the Civil Rights Movement (and they are alive today) were on the wrong side. Those who fought in the Confederacy against slavery were on the wrong side, too. All of these people—whites—fought against freedom, against justice, against allowing for the full humanity of Black Americans. This is not about politics; it’s about what is right and what is wrong.

Today is no different. Because in reality, for white people, there are those who stand for allowing racism and/or a status quo that sanctions the killing of their fellow Americans either out of bigotry, ignorance, or negligence. Conversely, there are those who decide at this pivotal moment in history to take a stance against injustice even if they will not benefit, even if it inconveniences them, and even if it’s hard, because they know that deep in their heart, the way that Black Americans are treated is antithetical to what America is supposed to be.

I am proudly choosing a side. I am choosing the side of justice. I am choosing the side of freedom. I am choosing the side of hope, love, dreams, and kindness. It is time to take up this unfinished mantle of previous movements for racial justice with earnestness and zeal (and to support each other in doing so). Long is it overdue for all communities to demand the full democratic inclusion of Black Americans—our fellow brothers, sisters, colleagues, friends, and citizens—into the nation they built, toiled, and served. I hope you will join me. That would be the best birthday gift of all.