A Statement

As a white, Scandinavian woman, born and raised in Connecticut, I would like to recognize the inherent privilege I experience because of the color of my skin. Being acutely aware of this, I cannot stay silent regarding what is happening in this country. My soul demands that I make my thoughts and feelings known, and this is one of the platforms I am choosing to use to do this.

One of our sons called us on his way home from another grueling 16-hour shift the other night. He is an emergency medicine resident, which means he's been working at least 100 hours a week for months now. He was stuck in traffic at a roadblock. Had he not still been wearing his scrubs and medical badge, he likely wouldn't have been let through the barricade at all. He, naturally, desperately needed get home to sleep for the few hours allotted to him, and hopefully find time for a snack.

I don't even remember him saying hello when I answered the phone. He just flatly stated, "The world is coming to an end."

In the past 6 months, he and his colleagues have experienced circumstances akin to the biblical plagues. Similar stories have been recounted by our medical professional friends and family members from around the country. As such, the woes expressed by our son are not a nuance; these experiences have been shared on the news, during televised fundraisers, through articles in high profile newspapers, on social media, and pretty much everywhere else imaginable.

The havoc accelerated ubiquitously for all of our frontline hospital workers from the start, as it did with so many others.

Among the first wave of catastrophic proportions were the seemingly countless victims of the dreadful pandemic. The gross lack of resources, the dire need for doctors and nurses to try to apply their experience and medical knowledge with this new unknown virus despite the odds, and the accompanying waves of devastation were omnipresent and overwhelming. The fact that patient loads and the dearth of resources piled on as they did was inexcusable. Things never should have reached the levels that they did, in the way that they did.

But then it wasn't up to the medical community to begin with, was it? What's more, things have really not improved as I am told from so many in the medical trenches. Our son has, tongue-in-cheek, often shared the imagery of these conditions to being dropped in a war zone dressed only in underwear and equipped only with squirt guns; a comparison we have heard from coast to coast.

No, these conditions have not improved, people just got tired of talking about these unimaginable realities as new distractions and catastrophes continue to crop up almost daily.

Then came the tide of more standard emergency department patients; victims of vehicle accidents, heart attacks, strokes, severe illnesses, serious injuries, broken bones, and more. These people could not always be attended to as immediately as usual due to the need to follow COVID-19 protocol for all patients as best possible; first securing whatever PPE was available, for fear of contamination. This just further compounded frustration and the inability to function optimally as medical professionals, as well as accelerating complications among their patients.

Adding to the cacophony of the fleet, another flow of casualties began to surface, arriving with injuries that have been occurring due to yet more consequences of the pandemic. Rising stress and tensions concerning finances and uncertainty of the future, exacerbated by the quarantine, have taken a toll. Domestic violence, residential disputes, and accelerated substance abuse cases are providing unnerving volumes of victims from situations that are already challenging for those in the medical profession.

And now this.

As if our medical community was not already submerged, now they're dealing with soul-crushing cases involving victims of extreme violence at the hands of riot police and other crowds, including white supremacists who are actively seeking to make matters worse. This tumult, not unexpectedly, is a direct result of the protests and uprisings around the country, and for our son, in downtown Denver and the surrounding areas, following the sadistic, deplorable murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Another murder of another black person at the hands of ruthless, bigoted, racist, misguided whites.

Our son carried on with his narrative, weak from sheer exhaustion, for the remainder of his drive. At one point I tried to add a little humor and maybe a different perspective to the conversation by suggesting that at least we had not yet been beset by a plague of locusts.

Yet. Unless you live in East Africa. Or India!

"True," he responded. Then again, he was quick to remind me, entomologists at Colorado State University have warned that Miller moths are back, and will be "noticeably more abundant in 2020". Not to mention the aptly named "Murder Hornets" that are making their presence known. Not quite biblical, but dangerous, remarkable, and incredibly annoying nonetheless!

The fact remained, I had nothing.

For someone who has made a career out of educating, writing, and teaching others how to communicate, I was speechless.

What do you say at this point?

What do you say to anybody to reassure them and buoy them up at this point?

Hang in there?

Things will get better?

I don't know how to help my son, or anybody else for that matter, to maintain hope or to hang in there.

And I have no assurance that things will actually get better.

All we could say to him was that we are here for him, and that we were so sorry for everything he is experiencing. We are shattered, and share the grief, struggles, grim despair, and fear that is blanketing our country and the world, and with which pretty much everyone in the world is currently dealing.

Allow me to shift gears just a skosh.

I would like to refer anyone who didn't read my last article entitled, "Dr. Brevik's Lingley Survival Guide, Can You Dig It? aka, May I please slap the next person who uses the phrase 'the new normal'?" to take a moment and do so.

This might give you some context as to my tolerance level right now, or complete lack thereof.

The wheels have come off of what has become the dilapidated jalopy we have known of as our country, and much of our world. American leadership in general is abysmal if evidenced at all, and the rest of us are pretty much just trying to subsist and maintain some semblance of life and livelihood.

Who knows where the next road is going to take us.

There is no stability.

There is no feeling of security. Everyone is at risk.

We should all be very afraid.

Parents are afraid to send their kids back to school because of COVID-19. Black parents are justifiably afraid to send their kids back to school because of racism and violence.

What have we done to the world?

I don't have any more answers than anybody else, although my opinions are very, very strong as you may have surmised.

I am just at a loss as to why small-minded, uneducated, intolerant bigots think the way they do. Failure to learn coping mechanisms? A lack of much needed therapy? A society that reinforces and perpetuates systemic and institutionalized racism? A jackassian executive branch of government that plays with matches in a tinder box, then fans the flames of division and violence? These are all compounding factors in a broken system that desperately needs rebuilding. Whatever the cause, or causes, perpetrators and participants are making conscious choices to do the things they are doing. And it is not okay.

I have taught in public inner-city schools where I, at least one year, literally had only one white student in my class. I distinctly remember choosing to use my meager teacher's wages to go to the local thrift store to get clothes for my students. Students were provided with uniforms, but due to home situations, whatever those looked like, they were often unwashed. We had a washer and dryer in the basement of that old school. I would have students come in early, change into the clothes I had purchased, and I would do laundry before class started. I often shared my lunch with students early in the day in an attempt to stem the tide of hunger that would keep them from being able to learn, focus, or express interest.

I remember asking the local newspaper to sponsor a field trip to the zoo for me, because I didn't have a single student who had ever been to one.

It wasn't that parents didn't care. In many cases, one grandparent was raising the children, and in other cases, there were no homes at all. They cared alright. They were doing the best they possibly could with their then-given circumstances.

I have also taught in high-level SES communities, where diversity was so lacking that we had to combine all non-Caucasian races to have a large enough statistic to disaggregate data while categorically assessing achievement.

Obviously, conditions in these communities held an entirely different set of variables. Student wardrobes, for the most part, showed off all the new fashions.The number of those qualifying for free and reduced lunch was comparatively minimal.

And almost everybody had a family membership to go to the zoo.

For many years, things seemed almost too perfect, very Pleasantville if you'll excuse the movie reference, until a massive, devastating wildfire swept through the entire community, turning many homes and neighborhoods to ashes. That quite literally provided a leveling factor that was profound for me to see among my students.

Let me make one thing crystal clear at this point. I am not highlighting these gross disparities in the communities and schools in which I have worked to shine a light on me.

This is not about me.

This is about a broken educational system, and inequities and inequalities in education that have prevailed for generations, and then I have witnessed and experienced firsthand.

Our educational system has been broken for a long time.

Just like our medical system has been broken.

Just like our government has been broken.

Compromising, postulating, politicizing, and opining need to stop. We needed action instead of rhetoric generations ago. Action is what we need now. Direct, definitive, palpable and tangible action.

We have truly reached a tipping point, and make no mistake, we are the ones who can and must determine what happens next.

I cannot purport to understand what it is like to walk through the streets as a minority person. However, I know with conviction that my racially diverse friends live in terror at every turn. This has only been accelerated in the last few years by focused, purposeful political manipulation and mayhem through which so many are continuing to be oppressed. Many facets of our government were fatally flawed from their inception. And now the current administration has been allowed to hijack this already broken system to radically deepen the division and disparities that were already disgraceful.

Everyone needs to be treated with dignity. Everyone needs to be treated with respect. Everyone needs understanding. Everyone needs empathy. Everyone needs inclusion.

It should go without saying this, but in my position and career path, I must emphasize that everybody deserves a proper education free of fear, bias, prejudice, and misunderstanding.

Educators who have truly accepted the mantle of providing a true education to everyone must remain willing to be transparent and promote change. We need to be teaching students of all ages about division, racism, intolerance, and cruelty; and these subjects need to be addressed frankly without the smoke and mirrors that have clouded them for so long. We need to be helping to teach each other, parents and teachers alike, how to pull back the curtain on subjects that so many have avoided for so long. We need to hit this head on. We need to be loud, we need to be consistent, and we need to be relentless.

This is literally why we are doing what we are doing.

Our mission and goals at Brevik Homeroom Educational Services have been designed with all people in mind.

Combining the thoughts of The Ghost of Christmas Present when blessing the poor with his horn of distilled cheer, and even Dumbledore while instilling courage and inspiring hope, our services will always be given "especially for those who need, and hence deserve it most."

Our doors have been and will remain open to any and all individuals and families interested in, or needing any type of educational support and instruction. We continue to charge for our services on a sliding scale, contingent on family and individual needs and circumstances.

Here you will find no bias.

Here you will find no taunting, danger, inadequacy, or fear-mongering.

Here you will be treated with dignity and respect.

Here you will be taught by exemplary tutors and educational personnel who not only nurture a love for learning and the honing of skills and abilities, but who supplant the heart and soul as well.

Here you will be treated as members of our family, where you can learn and grow in a peaceful, caring, dedicated and trusting relationship.

Here you will always be welcome!