You have doubtless read or listened to Indigenous Land Acknowledgments in a variety of venues, too diverse to adequately enumerate, from LWV events, to the theater, even in some churches. Like many well-intentioned actions, they have come to be recognized in need of clarification and updating. A powerful op-ed piece in the New York Times in January “Enough with the Land Acknowledgments” by Kathleen DuVal of the University of North Carolina, urges us all to think carefully about how we approach these statements.  

Professor DuVal argues that in some contexts these statements have outlived their usefulness. Their purpose is to “make us more aware of the dispossession and violence that occurred in the establishment and expansion of the United States.” This is needed in part because, for many people in the United States, the contemporary Indigenous population is not visible. But these statements can easily become an endpoint, rather than a jumping off point for greater change. To help repair past wrongs, the promotion of remembrance and understanding of the past must then lead to action.

I began writing Windows and Mirrors for All articles for the LWV Roseville Area Voter in March of 2004. The name of this LWV unit has morphed over the years, but its constituency is essentially the same. I began this writing at a time when the national LWV was encouraging local branches to try to change our image, action, and membership. The public often has too often seen us as just little old white ladies. LWVUS’s goal was to better reflect the communities which we serve and love while expanding participation. This was proving to be challenging and continues to be challenging today. And so, I began writing on diversity related topics, widely defined, in the hopes of contributing to thoughtful change, and haven’t stopped.

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Preamble to the United States Constitution, 1787

The United States Constitution consists of VII Articles which structure the three branches of the government and enumerate their powers and duties. It is a document shaped

One morning as I was mulling over several ideas for Windows and Mirrors, my radio was ever-tuned to MPR. There was Angela Davis talking to students and teachers at Roseville Area High School (RAHS) about Ethnic Studies! There it was.

During the 2023 legislative session a law was passed incorporating ethnic studies into social studies curriculum for Minnesota classrooms K-12. This must be done by the 2026-27 school year. The scaffold for this is still being developed by the Minnesota Department of Education, with curriculum tailored to the age and developmental needs of students. Some districts, including Roseville and St. Paul, are already offering courses in high school. My home district, ISD 622 will have a course beginning next year.

Windows and Mirrors for All is twenty. Not quite old enough to imbibe at Brews and Book Reviews, but old enough to reflect upon its age. When the first column ran in the March 2004 Voter seeing things through a DEI lens was in its early stages in LWVRA and those initials were not yet in vogue. As noted then, “The heading above, Windows and Mirrors for All, is gratefully derived from a wonderful essay by Emily Style ‘Curriculum as Window and Mirror’…Ms. Style states that “education needs to enable the student to look through window frames in order to see the realities of others and into mirrors in order to see her/his own reality reflected. I think people of all ages need both mirrors and windows with which to view the world, but too often we only have mirrors.” The goal remains the same.

[Read https://www.nationalseedproject.org/images/documents/Curriculum_As_Window_and_Mirror.pdf ]

Justice─a powerful and important concept. The word seems straightforward enough, but just try to get three people to agree on what is just in a particular case! Pinning it down can be elusive. Justice means different things to different people, in different eras, in different cultures, by class, by race, by religion….  

What we think of as just may reflect what we think about the structure of our society, but also how we think about human frailty, about personal and societal responsibility, about how to measure harm, about consequences and their functions. 

This month I want each of us to create our own content by trying a couple of thought experiments.

It will be easiest to do these when you have some quiet moments. Some may want paper and pencil, but they are not required. Don’t judge yourself, just observe carefully. Try not to anticipate or predict; just observe.

Sit quietly. Close your eyes, if that helps you to focus.

I will never claim to be the most up-to-date on the evolution of the English language. New slang is constantly surprising or mystifying me. I will also admit to being a bit of a curmudgeon in defense of “good” grammar. Still, there are changes to terminology I see and hear used with diversity topics that seem positive.

This begins, of course, with the move from talk of diversity to inclusion and equity, and now belonging. This change in language reflects the realization that numbers or mere presence is not an accomplishment to be sought. What is needed is a truer meshing of groups. 

One good source of teaching resources on DEI has long been the magazine, now providing online resources, for educators from the Southern Poverty Law Center. This was called Teaching Tolerance; it is now called Learning for Justice. This reflects the reality that tolerance is much too minimal a goal. Who feels good when just “tolerated.” It makes me think of a younger sibling tagging along with the big kids. They may be tolerated, but often are not truly included. Fortunately, society is now ready to be more attuned to a larger goal—justice.

Not too long ago there was a photo essay in The Atlantic magazine comprised of photos in which there was a single woman in a much larger group of men. The photos were excerpted from the book The Only Woman, by Immy Humes. Humes curates photos that span more than 150 years and crisscross the globe documenting a broad diversity of social, business, educational and cultural settings and reflecting multiple ethnicities, but there is always only one woman among the group of men. 

"The crimes of rape, and of assault and battery were felonies in the slavery era as they are today in any civil society. They were seen then as wrong, immoral, reprehensible, and worthy of the severest punishment. But the country allowed most any atrocity to be inflicted on the black body. Thus, twelve generations of African-Americans faced the ever-present danger of assault and battery or worse, every day of their lives during the quarter millennium of enslavement.”  Caste, Isabel Wilkerson, p. 153 

We have all seen the effects of weathering on the landscape, from the beauty of dramatically sculpted canyons to the terror of coastal homes teetering on undercut coastlines. The forces of wind and water are powerful, working relentlessly to modify the environment.

But what about the figurative wind and water of stress, fear, abuse and other human-made forces that lead to poorer health outcomes? This concept is not brand new, but it is more in the news today.