Coach, Facilitator, and Educator, Lesley Guilmart, returns for Part 2 of her series on Unburying Ourselves. Click to read Part 1.

In November, I shared with the Pivotal Paradigm community a personal story of being held accountable for a microaggression. I closed my story by encouraging white people to welcome and explore the uncomfortable and even painful emotions that arise when we engage in conversations about race. To help with that, I shared a sentence stem for times when we know we must speak and still aren’t sure what to say. Finally, I acknowledged that breaking our silence is a start but that it’s not enough. For many of us, the work of unearthing our biases and changing our behavior is just beginning.

Since then, I’ve been thinking about the next steps. As with many worthy pursuits, no sooner do we push past one fear or struggle than we are faced with the next one and the next. The journey toward justice and antiracism is punctuated by commas and ellipses, not periods. 

Sharing my story, and the hours I spent writing it, prompted me to reflect further and to appreciate more fully the brave teacher who confronted me half a decade ago. I’ll call her Victoria. I was her Director of Academics, and her yearly evaluation and salary were in my team’s hands. She is a white woman who needn’t have taken a risk to advocate for her Black colleagues. In confronting me, she could have been met with retaliation, ridicule, or marginalization. She spoke up anyway, and I listened, apologized, and learned. While I did not retaliate, I avoided Victoria for weeks, postponing further discomfort but also closure. Putting myself in her shoes, I can imagine how unsettled I would be if my supervisor avoided me after a difficult conversation. 

She listened and said something that I will remember for the rest of my life: “Maybe you should ask yourself why this experience was so painful for you.”

Eventually, Victoria approached me and asked for a follow-up conversation. She named the fact that I had been keeping my distance from her, acknowledged that I apologized to the teachers I’d hurt, and asked that we clear the air between us. In that moment, I wanted to be anywhere but sitting across from her having that conversation. I mentally ticked through my face-saving options. The only thing I could come up with was to reprimand Victoria for the uncomfortable position she’d put me in, but I knew I alone was responsible for that. Instead, I lamely told her how painful the experience had been and how I’d had no intention of harming anyone. She listened and said something that I will remember for the rest of my life: “Maybe you should ask yourself why this experience was so painful for you.” Her words landed like a punch to the gut. Again, I fought the urge to reprimand Victoria. She had done nothing wrong, unless asking someone with power a tough question is wrong.

As for her question, it sounded simple enough, but I had no idea how to answer it at the time. 

I squirmed through the rest of that conversation. Based on my position in the school, I felt like I was supposed to be the one imparting wisdom and pushing people to be better. It really stung to be the learner in the situation. I finally said to Victoria, “If you ever have a problem with something I do again, I ask that you come directly to me about it and not have conversations with others.” 

“I’ll do that for you,” she said. “But understand that I am under no obligation to spare people’s feelings in these kinds of situations.” I’ll remember that for the rest of my life too.

I can and must speak out even if there could be consequences for me – especially when there could be consequences for me.

I don’t recall how we closed the conversation, but at the end of the school year, Victoria gave me a thoughtful gift. I was stunned. This fierce woman who had put her job on the line to hold me, her boss, accountable for a racial microaggression, who had initiated a follow-up conversation in which I had failed to acknowledge how I might have harmed her as well, gave me a gift. To this day, I am astounded by her courage and grace.

We’ve both moved on to different schools. I’ve tried to find Victoria on social media, but I haven’t had any luck. I should try harder, I know. Perhaps I will, because I want to thank her. I want her to know that her words and actions had an impact. What she is teaching me now is that I can and must speak out even if there could be consequences for me – especially when there could be consequences for me. Over the summer, I faced that choice more than once. When my superintendent was silent in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the Black Lives Matter uprisings, I corresponded with him, urging him to take a stand. Not long after that, when my school district unveiled an unsafe and unsustainable reopening plan after the Spring shutdown of in-person learning, I spoke out – at a school board meeting, on the news, and in letters to the superintendent and school board. I had colleagues who wouldn’t even make eye contact with me after I went public with my dissent. District leaders Tweeted their disapproval of those who protested.

The fear is real. The risk is real.

But who do I want to be? Someone who knows the right thing to do and, out of fear, refuses to act? Or someone fierce, someone who recognizes that for this country to live up to its ideals, it takes individual people willing to take risks to do what is right?  

I know what the answer is for me. In 2020, I got some good practice pushing through fear. I will look back on the year with grief and anger – but no regret. And somewhere out there is a kind, brave teacher who showed me the way.

In 2021, I’d like to ask justice-minded white people: Who empowers you – through their wisdom and example – to unbury yourself from fear? Maybe they’re someone you know personally; perhaps they’re someone you’ve read or seen films about.

The work we need to do is difficult and at times frightening. We all need a Victoria to push us to do better, be braver, and remember that we are not alone.

Click here to read Part 1 of Unburying Ourselves: Beyond White Silence

To connect with Lesley, visit her website cypressrising.com