© 2024 Scott Pleasants

These Steps

Our people bleed in murals of forced representation that show the degree of pain caused upon so many. We take steps closer to this castle on the hill, this learning institution and we ask you to look up not down, to walk up not down, to rise up not down and together we will bring inside the stories of injustice and the narratives of oppression that continue to plaque our community; a community that feels as though it is continually being pulled through a sleeve of misrepresentation and despite the red, the white and the the blue, there is disorder in a fabric so tight that it doesn’t even allow for humanity to see the light.

We demand that you make note of the name of a young brother / son who can no longer tell you that his favorite color is red. We demand that you know the name of a father who would braid his daughter’s hair and of a mother who would walk her son to school. These are the names of an uncle who came by on the holidays and an aunt who shares your same birthday. These are the names of your cousin that lived down the street and the nephew and niece that you’ve yet to meet. These are the names of a stranger who you read about in the news and who’s story, you will never lose.

Within each step are also members of our community that have picked up a brush to stroke a connection that echos a tie that binds their closeness to a portrait of inequities. They too have painted their position into the process that is certain to find a path directly to the doorstep of change. While that door is ajar we will continue to push it open, a door that is no longer positioned just beneath our understanding but adjacent to a door that is clearly marked no more.