My fellow Utahns,
Today we stand at a crossroads. Our nation is divided. Our state is divided. And our knowledge is divided. Unfortunately, there is no evidence of the unity of Americans or Utahns in our values except to speak of our progress towards a state of supremacists or humanists.
I base this truth in our Declaration of Independence, where we claim “all men are created equal.” And in our beautiful nation after defeating slavery, rising above the cruelty of Jim Crow and our current ride on the waves of mass incarnation, it should come as a shock to none of us, the continued struggle with racism is in our classrooms. Yet here is where our narratives multiply and finding the path for our children becomes difficult.
The right believes teachers already overstep their bounds by teaching children about white privilege, narratives driven by white guilt, which is seen as ultimately anti-white and racism against white people. The left believes teachers lack the knowledge, tools and training to teach about racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia well enough to keep our kids safe.
Unfortunately, this binary isn’t enough to paint a clear picture of the conflict at hand. We have to keep in mind on the national level we have a misinformation campaign being run to tell us that the Centers for Disease Control is scamming us on COVID-19, that science isn’t a reliable means learning about the world and that we must eliminate critical race theory from being taught in all schools, because it is racist. This has created a minefield for all Americans to navigate and feel safe with each other.
The only way for us to make this journey to find the answers our children need is to communicate with each other. The left and the right must engage in dialogue with each other. However, let us establish the rules by which we can begin this conversation.
- All conversations must take place in good faith. No name calling, slurs or put-downs will be allowed. We must model the kind of humanity we wish to demonstrate to our children in conflict.
- There must be agreed upon definitions of ideas to talk about them. Because if the right believes anti-racism to be oppression or anti-whiteness, and the left believes anti-racism to be a system of destroying oppression, there is no common ground to build solutions from.
- The conversation has to search for a non-political solution that solves the problems of parents, students and teachers inside the system. Why? Because solving school-related problems with political agendas hurts all of us. School boards were created to make non-partisan decisions. This is to protect our students’ right to choose their politics as adults. To cater to one side or the other, means our students are the ones who suffer. A suffering that will create greater marginalizations and oppressions in our future.
There cannot be any lasting peace without conversation. There cannot be any meaningful peace without conversation. There cannot be harmonic peace without conversation. And the principles that unify a pair of people with differing belief systems are the same that do so for groups.
This does not mean all those who come to speak mean well, or should be allowed to participate in the conversation. Nor that we’ve even established all the rules. I wrote this that all sides may learn from each other.
More important than the ultimate decision made is how we as adults respond to learning from each other. Because that example is the most powerful way we have to teach our kids that school means something. And that our democracy can still function.
Jayrod P. Garrett, Bountiful, teaches 11th and 12th grade English/language arts, research writing and poetry writing at DaVinci Academy.
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