Head of School’s Notebook: The Human Sea

May 20, 2022

Many years ago, I wrote in this Notebook about a school shooting that didn’t make the front page of the newspaper. I couldn’t understand at the time why such a tragedy could be upstaged by anything else. Maybe the publishers, I mused, or their readers, were no longer shocked by such violence. Or not shocked enough.

I remembered that post this past weekend, when I learned of the attacks in Buffalo and Orange County. Hate is still on the rise, and with it fear. Violence is more commonplace than ever. We wonder what to make of this angry world … and what to do about it.

We held a series of conversations at Cate early in the week by affinity groups, for students and faculty, trying to give everyone an opportunity to share in a place that feels comfortable and safe. The dominant response on the part of participants was exhaustion. Said one student, “I feel numb.” No feeling at all. Surely that is worse than the alternative, painful as it is to feel heartbreak or desperation or rage. We are likely feeling all of those things, actually, which may be the source of the exhaustion. Wouldn’t it be nice to believe that the world is better, that people are better, that there is a clear way out of this morass of enmity and blame?

An essay from Reverend Frederick Davie of Interfaith America on Monday noted, “We’re here not of our own accord, not because we are white or black or brown, but because the Universe put us here. None of us has any greater claims over any place on this earth than any other.”  And yet, we can’t seem to coalesce behind such a reasonable mantra.

Is it any wonder that our young people – or any people – find themselves in a battle for their own surety and well-being? There is no peace – literal or figurative – which dashes hope before it can gain any traction. A broken world is a formidable challenge. One that seems irreparable is a dream killer. And all life, particularly young life, depends upon dreams.

I don’t have an answer to this circumstance, just a commitment. We have to push back on the anger and the hate, and answer it with energy, conviction and faith. To me, that is what it means to be anti-racist. It is what it means to acknowledge and honor, as Reverend Davie suggested, the rightful place of every human being on this planet.

On the eve of graduation and the completion of another school year on the Mesa, that is a timely reminder. We have much to learn still, and much to teach each other. And that is about far more than words, much as I love them. Vocabulary won’t get us to the world we’d imagine for ourselves and each other.

Said a colleague, a woman of color, to me just a few days ago, “At this point, I leave it to my white anti-racist brothers and sisters to protest en masse to denounce white supremacy and violence. What would it look like for people of color to see a sea of white people who do not advocate this type of violence perpetrated on anyone especially people of color?”

A sea, she said. We must become a sea. A moving breathing community of beings amidst an eco-system that nurtures each one. A multitude in one whole. A paradigm of strength and purpose and unity. Nothing and no one holds back a sea.