My mother gets the credit for waking me up to racism when I was a small child. It was my habit to sit at my father's feet as he and my mother sat down to watch the CBS nightly news with Walter Cronkite. The year was 1963 and a bomb had exploded at a church in Birmingham, killing four girls, Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Denise McNair. Walter Cronkite asked Gene Patterson, editor of the Atlanta Constitution, to read a column he had written, live on television. I was 8 years old, and the moment changed my life forever.
Mr. Patterson read this:
A Negro mother wept in the street Sunday morning in front of a Baptist Church in Birmingham. In her hand she held a shoe, one shoe, from the foot of her dead child. We hold that shoe with her.
To read the entire column, see here:
I had no idea what racism was in the small all-white Iowa town in which I grew up. My mother had to answer my questions as she tucked me in that night, and I remember crying into my pillow with the images from the news. I was close to these girls' age, and I had no context for what was happening in the world at the time.
Since 1963, I have been driven to understand racism on a personal level and through my philanthropy and leadership in Memphis, Tennessee. I am deeply concerned that we've just scratched the surface of systemic racism in the 52 years since that night in Birmingham. Sadly, I still occasionally cry into my pillow at night.
However, I've come to see racism in a new light, less about skin color and more about our entire system of economics. I've been willing to look at white privilege and see it play out in my own life, every day. I've examined my motives in philanthropy, listening to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assessment when he said in 1968, "Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary."
Recently, I was moved by an article written by Nikkia Rowe, a principal at the Renaissance Academy in West Baltimore. She created a powerful lens with which to view the Black Lives Matter movement in context today:
Outcomes for young men of color will only truly change when we all have the courage to make radical change to challenge and restructure the current system.
y=g(k(h((x)))
At a child's birth, as with your own child, the perspective of his potential was infinite.
The x will represent our child's potential in our simulated equation.
The y is our outcome, the end of the journey, the desired result.
The variable g is representative of society's complacency,
The k represents antiquated (my words: racist and unjust economic systems), and
The h is the lack of investment.
Ms. Rowe has captured what African Americans are fighting for in this country; our complacency, our unjust systems of power and privilege, and our lack of investment in those who need it most. The formula has given us the intended result. There is no mystery here.
In 2016, we hold the shoe of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile among the thousands of other African Americans who have been killed or oppressed by the current system. This is not anti-police. It is simply a mirror for those of us with unequal power and privilege to hold up and gaze into the reflection. I invite others in my position to look with me. Believe me, it takes courage.
Change will come only when we engage our local, state, and national elected officials in peaceful protest, meaningful dialogue, and the power of the people to vote in our democracy.
If we are going to survive and flourish as a country, we must create a new math formula that calculates justice so that the outcome for every child reflects our pledge that this nation finally stands for liberty and justice for all.