To the Editor:

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) are being discussed in our community — and in communities and organizations all over our country. It is symbolic of the “elephant in the room.”

I hope we can keep an open mind and be willing to be uncomfortable with these ideas because that’s how we’ll learn and grow. We as individuals need to be curious about why we get defensive or uncomfortable; let’s question why we’re having such reactions.

We need to reckon with our past and present to address our wrongs. To do that, collectively, we need to understand our conditioning over hundreds of years in a caste-based system where racism plays a central role.

We must confront and acknowledge that stealing indigenous peoples’ land and slavery played critical roles in building this country. Our often-inequitable systems convey privilege to some to the detriment of others. We can do this without shaming ourselves or others and educating ourselves about our conditioning towards biases. But we have to be open to learning and recognizing the messages we’ve absorbed over generations.

We are not taught an accurate history of our country, including the ideals written into the preambles of our Constitution and Declaration of Independence. The founders wrote these words, yet many allowed or worked to divide people by the socially constructed concept of race, which was in place before the Constitution.

They leveraged race to create and maintain inequality via systems and laws to oppress people of color to benefit white people and maintain a white supremacy culture that endures today. Yes, the founders wrote the ideals, and we should actively aspire to fulfill them in a way they did not; that would be patriotic.

As white people, especially white men, we don’t have the daily lived experiences that historically excluded groups do and therefore have the privilege of not thinking or dealing with it because we are in what’s considered the “normal” or dominant group.

Last week, a letter stated that the unit of society is “the sacred bond of the family,” but it’s not; it’s community. Google “society,” the result is: “the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community.”

In this spirit, consider moving from an individual thinking mindset which, according to writer Tema Okun,* is one of the characteristics of a white supremacist culture. The US we know today, and the lives we live are built on the lands of Indigenous Peoples and the backs of Black People. We’ve been conditioned to believe that individualism and meritocracy are the ways to success, but no one achieves anything here on their own.

The number of resources surrounding these topics can be overwhelming, but that cannot be an excuse not to educate ourselves. I’ve found tons of material that have helped me better understand our history and culture; I can not look at our country or community the way I did ten years ago.

As starting points, I highly recommend the article “White Privilege — Unpacking The Invisible Knapsack” by Peggy McIntosh and the “Seeing White” podcast by Scene On Radio.

Thank you,

Lee Shull

Sandy Hook

*Editor’s note; Tema Jon Okun is a North Carolina activist. She has spent many years working for and in the social justice community.