This article is written by Hope Miller, TNSM parent and member of the Diversity and Community and Engagement Committee (D+CE) and expresses her views. At TNSM, we are grateful to have this D+CE forum that allows opportunities for members of our community to share their own beliefs, always with the goal of expanding our understanding of each other’s experiences and points of view.
I waited to write this post until after the Auction and Gala so that I could say something pithy about community. In waiting, something else happened: another mass shooting in America.
On Saturday afternoon, May 14—while many of us were preparing to gather at The New School, to celebrate the Annex, to enjoy good food, drink, and company—a young white man walked into a supermarket in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo and started shooting.
By the time you read this, more details will have emerged. What we know right now is that this young man drove to Buffalo from someplace else, hours away. He arrived in tactical gear with a camera mounted to his helmet (presumably to film his murderous rampage), and he may have posted a racist and Anti-Semitic manifesto online.
What can I possibly say about community now?
Also today, May 14, thousands gathered across the U.S. to protect access to safe and legal abortions. Overturning Roe v. Wade will never end abortion in America. It will end safe abortion in America. Women and pregnant people will die. And they will overwhelmingly be poor, and many will be women and pregnant folks of color.
What can I possibly say about community now?
When we’re up against so much, what can we do? So much hatred and fear. So much racism and misogyny. Community is what happens as our response. Buffalo residents immediately began to gather near the Tops Friendly Market Saturday evening. Dozens of us gathered at The New School Saturday night to help enact a vision. And over 4,000 people gathered in Cincinnati alone during the “Bans Off Our Bodies” protests Saturday morning.
Gathering in community can be our response to violence, racism, misogyny. It can be our hope for the future. I feel like Marge Piercy says it better in her poem The Low Road.
Does your family observe a tradition or cultural holiday that you’d like to share with the TNSM community? Do you have a passion for or expertise in a certain area of DEI? The D&CE committee is always looking for books, resources, and classroom speakers to help deepen the cultural competency of our school community. Please reach out to us at Diversity@…