ExchangeEveryDay Past Issues

Francis, I don't know exactly what the presenters have in mind, but I do know I've appreciated their prior work in part because they make me think and reflect on my own ideas. I appreciate ideas that challenge me. Sometimes those ideas challenge me AND change me, hopefully for the better, and sometimes they just challenge me. My hope is that we make room to listen and share with one another in an atmosphere of curiosity and trust, which is one of the reasons I always appreciate your input and perspectives.

It's exiting and informational to see a listing of upcoming workshops and conferences. However, I am appalled to see a workshop entitled, Benefits and Consequences of Racial Segregation in Early Childhood. Given our history of bitter fights around segregation in schools - from not allowing Black children to go to school or learn to read, to the struggle for equal education under the as law in the 1960s - I cannot conceive of this idea! I remember reading a passage in the autobiography of Booker T. Washington where he recollected walking past a school as the children where learning, and said to himself, "that's my idea of paradise". It's not clear to me the benefits of segregation that will be covered in this prestation, but it's frightening that we are even entertaining going back to segregation. And, as the parent of four biracial children and an advisor to many other interracial families, I am also very much aware of prejudice and harassment of interracial families and biracial children by Black schools and other institutions. We need to be actively working towards integration and equality, NOT segregation!