Menlo News June 03, 2020

Head of School Than Healy on Current Events

Over the weekend, Head of School Than Healy shared this note with the Menlo community addressing the nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice.

Dear Menlo Community,

I’ve had the Langston Hughes poem “Harlem” running through my head for the last week. 

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

I’ve had the good fortune of witnessing a dozen or so discussions of this poem in high school classrooms over the years and heard the many ways that students have sought to understand the sentiment being expressed. But lately I’ve been substituting other words for the “dream” mentioned in the opening line: justice, fairness, safety, dignity, humanity. And regardless of the word I use in that first line, I find that the answers to Hughes’ questions are uniformly “yes”. All of these outcomes are predictable results when we as a community, country, or species choose to put off for another, more just, perhaps distant day, these essential aspects of our shared humanity.

And so it is no surprise to me today that 400 years of systemic racism and systematic violence have caused explosions across our country. But let’s not forget the other, equally painful, if less obvious, consequences of denying each other and ourselves our humanity: the withering, the festering, the stench, the crusting over, the heavy weighted sagging … all of these are similarly destructive outcomes of deferring our ideals. This hurt, and these consequences of justice and human dignity deferred, have been present long before the events of this week. 

Menlo School has always worked to achieve solidarity, to promote a collectivist orientation, and to develop in our graduates empathy that we hope will be translated into compassion in the lives they choose to live. Over the last three months, we have had occasion to call forward our best selves, the “better angels of our nature”, as we face a common enemy in the virus ravaging our globe. I have encouraged us to surface our collective vulnerability, flexibility, and grace; to prioritize those most vulnerable in our immediate and distant communities even at our own inconvenience.

Today I am crushed to write in acknowledgement that there are members of the Menlo community who are in deep pain over the murders of Ahmaud Arbery out for a jog in a south Georgia neighborhood by neighbors in February, Breonna Taylor in her home in March by Louisville police officers, and George Floyd last week at the hands of a police officer in Minneapolis while three other officers looked on. For some, the pain comes from the shock of disbelief that this kind of thing can happen in today’s society. For others, there is no shock, and the pain comes from the reinforcement of a recurring pattern of events that remind us that we have not yet conquered the racism—subtle and explicit–and hatred—subtle and explicit—that has divided us since before we were a nation.

What I most want those hurting to hear from me, on behalf of this entire community, is this: those of us fortunate to be able to choose embrace the pain you may not have a choice about. We choose to engage with it and not look away from it. You are not alone. Once again we must stand in solidarity, we must take up a collectivist orientation and we must all be willing to sacrifice our own conveniences—including the conveniences of a clear conscience—for the benefit of the most vulnerable in our communities.

While we are far from perfect as a school, our humility and determination to continue to learn and grow and to resist the urge to turn away from the uglier aspects of our nature as a society is truly the only path forward. The alternatives are unacceptable and involve allowing our collective humanity to wither, fester, stink, and crust over. This is not the world we dream of and it is not the world we exist as a school to imagine into being.

We must do better.

But I also have faith. I have faith in the words of Nelson Mandela that if hatred can be taught, it can also be unlearned. I have faith that our systems are man-made, which means they can be changed. I will always have faith in our collective humanity and that faith is especially vital in our darkest moments. And I have faith that our students, our faculty, our staff, our families, and our alumni—indeed our whole community—can be part of the solutions we seek.

For those of you who are hurting and in need of self-care, or who would like to learn more, or who would like to take action: we have put together a series of resources for you to use or employ with your families. I would encourage you to make use of them.

Take care of yourselves and take care of each other,

Than Healy
Head of School