I wrote this for a journal, which wasn’t into it because, well, it’s more of an essay than it is research. But here’s the thing: more of you are going to read it here anyway, and it will rapidly become irrelevant if it goes through another review process! So here you go. Enjoy!

Introduction

In this current moment of potential racial reckoning, visible changes have occurred. Statues have been toppled, more people have marched than at any other time in American history, and opinions have shifted dramatically on the pervasive results of systemic racism and anti-Black violence, even when compared to just a few years ago. These are necessary initial steps for us to take as a country, and I was initially hopeful, as the protests began, that we might see substantive movement towards a racially just world, even during a particularly traumatic time. …

This ended up being about Shake Shack, kind of?

I try not to curse in my public scholarship. Twitter and my podcast are rated PG-13 because they’re mostly freeform, but if I write an essay, even one like this that isn’t peer-reviewed, I make it suitable for the children (or my mother). I mention this to say that this promise I have made to myself is really going to be tested in this piece, because the subject is infuriating.

I am not on the market for a job these days, but I still get email alerts to whatever Indeed wants to send along. Lately, for obvious reasons, there has been an absolute flood of postings for titles that are some version of “Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” from organizations as varied as charter school networks and restaurant chains like Shake Shack. This was to be expected, because if organizations know how to do anything well, it’s throwing money at something without any sort of deep reflection. …

We can do better than a return to normal in the education world

We are in the middle of something now that, at least for those of us in the United States, none of us have been alive to see. Older Europeans may remember the devastation of the 1940s, and of course many other nations that the United States itself has abused can recall the trauma of national chaos and despair, but for us, in the US, this is unprecedented. What I am going to say here does not at all discount the reality of the thousands who will die here (and have already passed away in many other countries), or the complete foolishness of our national politicians (whom I’ll return to), or even the abject immorality of the senators who engaged in insider trading when they were briefed about the impending pandemic months ago. Suffice it to say, the bad actors and bad results are real, and should not be ignored. But once we reach a point of relative stability, be in two months, six, or (hopefully not) eighteen, we will try to return to some version of normal. And that normal will feel comforting, certainly more comfortable than the feeling we get every time we get a push notification on our phones about the latest death toll (or is that the anxious way I live my life?). I wouldn’t blame anyone for wanting to get back to the status quo. But what if we chose not to go back? What if we didn’t have to settle for normal? What if we could make an entirely new version of our world, our country, and especially our educational institutions? The only thing stopping us is a series of rules that are rapidly being revealed as fictitious and arbitrary. We don’t have to go back if we don’t want to. …