B.F. Day Elementary proudly supports its most targeted students

I spoke today to the fourth-graders at B.F. Day Elementary School in Seattle about my experiences at Standing Rock and about what continues to happen there.

When I was their age, I was in Fargo, North Dakota, learning our state's "history," which seemed to only be about 100 years deep.  I learned very little meaningful information about the area's indigenous people, and I was taught that our country's oppressive days of breaking treaties were a thing of the past -- and that racism and inequality were fixed by the total and peaceful success of the Civil Rights Movement.

It was easy to know who I was in those history lessons. I was a white ally, sneaking people through the Underground Railroad, standing up against the Native genocide, hiding Jewish refugees in my attic, sitting at lunch counters and marching on Washington. I was a rebel!

It's easy to imagine having been brave in retrospect. It's easy to assume you'd have responded to the call, forgetting how many people stayed home and stayed silent as the atrocities were carried out.

Its easy to forget, though, that real life is more uncertain. It's scarier. To be a rebel in reality, to stand openly and fully with the oppressed, is to put yourself at considerable risk.

Yet this is no time to shrink from this challenge. Life in our oppressive society demands that we be bold or that we be part of the problem. That means we must -- we must! -- truly put ourselves out on a limb in real time, in real life, on behalf of our brothers and sisters who don't have the privilege to ignore this particular fight.

It means we have to think critically and see through the mirages of justification. It has to be within us to rebuke the many reasons people find to side with the oppressor, to find fault in people crying for equality.

It's easy to forget that there have been "reasons" people have let their morals slide throughout history -- all based in fear -- just as there are "reasons" now that North Dakotans see the #NoDAPL movement as a threat to their safety and see oil as an essential part of their economy and statewide identity. Just as people find "reasons" to disagree with #BlackLivesMatter protests and with trans folks who say they'd like a safe bathroom. Just as you have work tomorrow and bills to keep up with and kids to drive to school and a whole life to maintain.

There will always be reasons to stay home, reasons to excuse this particular form of persecution and oppression at this particular moment in history. But those reasons never stand the test of time and perspective.

And that leads us to an uncomfortable truth: if we're not doing anything, we're complicit. We're siding with the oppressor.

Nobody is coming to save us. It's up to us. We have to find a way to make an impact now -- all of us -- or it won't happen.

Staff and students at B.F. Day Elementary in Seattle put signs in front of their school making clear what they believe, making clear what they will and won't tolerate. 

There could have been plenty of reasons for the school to keep quiet, to want to avoid "seeming political" or "taking sides" or "ruffling feathers." 

Instead, they saw through the excuses and chose love, and look at the result:  students and families who are targets of extreme prejudice and potential violence right now are being told in so many words that they are loved, that they are part of a community that will stand up with them and stand up for them. 

Thanks, B.F. Day, for doing your part in this critical, stupefying time and being an example for all of us.