Juneteenth Day

Yesterday I participated in a webinar - A Juneteenth Conversation: Reckoning with Our Histories to Reimagine Our Futures, Together - presented by my alma mater, NYU. The presenters were three brilliant women - NYU Office of Global Inclusion, Diversity, and Strategic Innovation's Senior Vice President Lisa Coleman and Associate Vice President Karen Jackson-Weaver, and Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute professor Rachel Swarns.

It was breathtaking on many levels. It made me realize just how much I DIDN’T know about slavery and the continued systematic dehumanization of people of color. I felt sick to the core. It also made me realize how I need to educate myself more, how I need to speak up and help change happen. It’s up to all of us, each individual, each parent to stop the cycle of cruelness. I also realized that I’ll never truly know what this level of dehumanization feels like but I can empathize. Most can empathize IF they choose to.