Daily, I’m reminded of one of the greatest challenges we face as leaders in innovation, right now. This challenge is of even greater import and urgency for those who lead in the law. Because law is the operating system for our social human systems. An OS that is breaking under the weight of virulent racism.
Last Tuesday, our hearts broke again, this time in solidarity with Asian women. Our Asian friends and colleagues, sharing their sorrow and fear and anger and sadness with us, in conversations and in social media and everywhere in between, and compelling those who stand as allies and who have the capacity to lead, to DO SOMETHING.
And while our siblings of color live with and are killed by white supremacy too, and while our sisters of color and our white sisters live with and are killed by misogyny too, today I have to write to us first, with the Asian women who have been crying all week, who are grief-stricken, furious, afraid, and heartsick, our bodies rioting beneath the heft and bulk of a racist, misogynist tragedy while we mourn.
R. O. Kwan
”A Letter to My Fellow Asian Women Whose Hearts Are Still Breaking”
I’m going to go straight to the #tinychallenge and simply say this to my white colleagues and friends: it is up to all of us, to be the change. And it is the #BIGchallenge of our lifetimes. We have implicit and perhaps even explicit authority and power and we can choose to make change that creates value for ALL by choosing to lead in ways that address and eradicate racism head-on.
I can’t tell you how to do this. I wish I could. I spend a lot of time, every day, working on this very challenge, myself. What can I do, within my sphere of influence, with the power and authority I may wield, to be the change?
I do this by acknowledging the Asian women who lost their lives on March 16, and asking my students to do the same when we have our mindful moment in Leading in Law. I do this by examining my own actions and opportunities to be a change maker and #makelawbetter for ALL by explicitly calling out and addressing racism, and seeking ways to influence change when and where I can, whether on Twitter or in this newsletter or in conversations with friends and colleagues and sometimes even complete strangers. I DO.
What does this look like for you? All I ask is that you think about this. And do something.
This photo of John Lewis and his words was taken in the Nashville Public Library, and I look at it every day and ask myself these questions. And every day, I try to answer them by and through something that I do, to be the change.
This is my answer:
US.
NOW.
Onward!
Cat
21 March 2021
c.moon@vanderbilt.edu | @inspiredcat
P.S. I leave today’s coda to Lucille Clifton, whose body of work provides a lesson and inspiration for us all. Go here for the interactive poem guide, via the Poetry Foundation.