Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/advancing-an-equitable-and-anti-racist-child-care-system/5025508/
As a Mexican-American born in Arizona, I encountered racists and was subjected to racism. As a mother, I worry about my college-age son as he navigates his way in the world, including interactions with the police. As I watched George Floyd suffocate and die under the knee of a white police officer, I felt its painful pressure in my own life, and the lives of my children, parents and grandparents.
In many ways, I am the manifestation of the dreams of my grandparents—a college graduate, earning a doctorate and living her passion in her professional career. Like so many of my brothers and sisters of color, I am both deeply grateful for my family’s sacrifices and the life I have, as well as painfully aware of the subtle—and not at all subtle—ways that my skin color informs people’s interactions with me, my family and countless others.
I share this to make explicit that if we are to confront the reality of racism, implicit bias and their painful outcomes, we need to talk about them in a very personal way. We need to share, be vulnerable, listen, hold space for the hard conversations and be willing to act based on new awareness. As ...