In Medias Res

A thing has been going on at my university lately. I'm tired of thinking about it so I'm not going to write about it. Suffice it to say that women were treated poorly at a recent faculty meeting. Suffice it to say that valid concerns from faculty from underrepresented groups were clearly stated but not clearly heard. Suffice it to say that the public response from leadership at the university has been lacking (this is a charitable euphemism for “nonexistent”). And then, suffice it to say that a person with good intentions counseled patience with the process. Suffice it to say that a person with good intentions suggested a listening session with leadership as a way to move forward.

I responded: “I appreciate your call for patience, but we have been waiting for a long time. How long? How long do you want us to wait?” I responded: “We don't want a listening session. We want action.”

I have thought about this a lot after I said it. I said it in the heat of the moment, and it came from my heart rather than my brain. I said it because it felt true. Then I thought about it a lot, and now I know why this is true.

We Are Tired

Do you want to know why this is true? Do you want to know why we don't want a listening session? I will tell you why: We are tired.

We are tired of listening sessions.

We are tired of having to explain to other people why our experiences are valid.

We are tired of having to explain to other people why our emotions should matter.

We are tired of making a case for our importance as human beings.

We are tired of needing to explain the things that should be obvious. (You should not yell at women faculty in a faculty meeting. This should be obvious.)

We are tired of saying a thing, and then having to say the same thing again a week later, and then having to say the same thing again next month.

We are tired of doing other people's homework for them.

We are tired of it falling on our shoulders to educate other people.

We are tired of other people's lack of curiosity about the experiences of people who don't look like them.

We are tired of the show of empathy.

We are tired of only receiving empathy from people in positions of power when we specifically demand it.

We are tired of cultivating shallow understanding from people of goodwill.

We are tired of participating in the triumph of order over justice.

We are tired of easing tensions.

We are tired of being so gravely disappointed.

We Want Action

Academics have a unique propensity to delay action until there is absolute consensus on what the absolutely correct action is. Academics love a committee. Academics love to deliberate and to philosophize and to debate and to theorize. We're tired of all of this.

We just want people to do something. Just take one step in a direction that looks right. Just take one step and then see how to go from there. We are not asking for people to build a plane in midair. We are asking for people to start building the plane.

We don't want people to listen to us. We want to listen to people as they describe to us what they are going to do. We are happy to give people feedback on their plan. We just want people to have a plan, and to be ready to do something.

The arc of the moral universe bends in precisely the direction that people bend it. We have been bending: by virtue of who we are, we have no choice but to bend. We are asking for people to recognize us, to listen to the things we have already been saying, to watch what we are doing and to see what we have done, and to start bending with us.