Week 6: I Somehow Got To DC?

I know I’m writing this post a little late, but it’s because I was in DC all weekend (well I got back around 3 AM on Saturday, but that’s essentially all weekend). My coworkers who are involved with 482Forward, a community organizing group centered around education reform in Detroit, were invited on a free trip to participate in the Save Our Schools People’s March. They were talking about it on Wednesday in the office, and I was kind of like, “Hey that sounds really fun!” And then before I was super aware of what was happening I was on a bus to DC.

Although it happened very quickly, being invited to go on this trip was huge to me. Only educators and community organizers from Detroit were invited, people from Detroit who work everyday to improve the conditions of the schools here. While I was definitely out of place, since this is only my summer internship and I spend the overwhelming majority of my time in Ann Arbor, I am so grateful that the people around me have accepting me enough to invite me to help them represent Detroit in another city. To me, that was a really big deal (even though I’m sure it wasn’t something my coworkers were actively thinking about).

Actually being on the trip involved quite a few different emotions for me. When we actually got to DC, we went to the National Mall near the Lincoln Memorial to listen to speakers who are education activists from all over the country. On the way there, my heart was heavy because I kept thinking about the recent deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. I knew there were protests going on all over the country about the killing and dehumanizing of black and brown people by police, and it felt strange to me to be going to a protest that felt (for a lack of better words) a little less urgent. As a white ally (although I’ve read articles recently that say the word ally isn’t a good term, but again I have a lack of better words), I’m often not sure where to best lend my help and support. I wasn’t completely sure if DC was the right place for me to be, but of course didn’t want to voice these concerns and lower the morale and excitement of the people around me.

However, when we got to the rally and I began listening to the speakers, my reservations left pretty quickly. Many of the speakers had us take moments of silence for both the victims of police brutality as well as all gun violence that has taken place recently. They talked about how schools that continuously fail black and brown students are a form of violence as well. I remembered that the #BlackLivesMatter movement is not simply about the end to police brutality in this country. To say that would be to say that the police/criminal justice system is the only racist and broken system, and that is simply not the case. The public education system, for the most part, does not serve black and brown students and that needs to be reformed as well. You don’t need to look any further than Detroit, or my own school in Ann Arbor which is widely considered a great school but had one of the biggest achievement gaps between black and white students in the state last year, to see that. Being at the rally helped me to remember why I care so much about education justice, and why I love what I’m doing this summer.

I’m not exactly sure where my thoughts are going at this point, so I guess I’ll just end with a phrase that many people on this trip wrote on their signs at the protest: Detroit students deserve justice.