Bridges to Heal US: Stories and Strategies for Racial Healing

by Erin Jones

You can change the world, too, by sharing your story and listening to the stories of others. In sharing stories, we are exposed to our humanity—the reality that each of us has won and lost in life; each of us has experienced heartache and failure at some moment.

Each of us has gifts that could be used to benefit both our families and those we do not yet know. So often, our continued segregation—often merely circumstantial—in housing, schooling, and places of worship creates distance, suspicion, and fear.

Once you know better, you must do better.

Not talking about a thing does not make it go away. Not talking about a thing does not create an environment of “safety.” I would suggest that pressure to be silent about controversial issues is a significant sign that the environment is not “safe.”

“Culturally responsive practice” means considering the different cultural expressions and ways of being that exist within a classroom, institution or organization and choosing to intentionally adopt cultural practices that affirm all who are members of that community. “Culturally responsive practices” are critical to creating inclusive spaces.

Equity requires unpacking all the ways race is implicated in systems, practices, and policies. We must consider the ways policies and practices are developed and implemented and then use our power, voices, and influence to stop harmful practices and institute practices that ensure the support that leads to the thriving of all people in our community and our nation.

Equity is about thriving, not just surviving. Equity requires interrogating the systems at play to determine where there are walls that need to be torn down and where there are bridges that need to be built to connect people to resources and opportunities.

If each one of us could get comfortable starting with ourselves, acknowledging the good, the bad, and the ugly, the ways we have benefitted from systems and practices or been marginalized we could do the work necessary to move us into a better version of ourselves (as individual people, schools, businesses, agencies, a nation. We cannot fix what we are not willing to face.

Doing the work of racial equity, committing to racial healing does not have an “end.” You will never arrive “at” racial healing or equity.

If you are someone in a position of power or are connected to someone with influence, insist on hearing direction from Black, Brown, and Native people before making policy changes, writing your equity statement, or hiring that new Director of Equity. Make sure Black and Brown and Native people are not only at the table for important conversations and decisions; make sure they are heard, and their words are taken seriously and acted on somehow.