Community Conversation - We Have to Keep Showing Up

The following is part of DougCo Collective’s “Community Conversations” and was written by a Douglas County community member (parent, student, teacher/staff or community member).  The intent of “Community Conversations” is to give members of the Douglas County community an opportunity to contribute to the larger DCSD conversation with their lived experiences and perspectives.

Estimated Read Time: 3 minutes

More Black lives have been taken. Stolen. White supremacy, racism, systemic inequities and hatred are the causes. It was one white supremacist who pulled the trigger. But how many fingers helped pull it? All of the people who are complicit, unwilling to learn and listen, pulled that trigger. It was pulled by those who are comfortable in their ignorance and privilege, more willing to stay silent. It may have been one shooter, but it was an entire toxic system that killed those people.  

This is 2022, and this is still happening. Why?  

White supremacy affects every aspect of every system. We swim in this toxic sea every day. Educating kids and adults is imperative to changing this repetitive narrative. It’s urgent that students and adults study patterns of history, think critically about the messages they receive, recognize when manipulation is happening, and call out racism in all of its forms, while resisting and advocating and continuing to show up against white supremacy and for humanity, for equity, for better systems. 

We have to keep educating ourselves and our kids. We have to keep unlearning and leaning into new learning that might make us uncomfortable. We cannot disconnect. We cannot tune out the violence in the world. 

We have to keep showing up.