I watched in both horror and profound sadness as Diamond Williams had the presence of mind to live stream the last moments of her boyfriend Philandro Castile's life violently cut short by the gun barrel of a police officer who stopped him for a broken tail light.

The officer outside the vehicle still had his weapon pointed at the mortally wounded Philandro shouting,

"I told him to keep his hands raised"

Diamond: "No Sir. You told him to reach for his ID in wallet "

How could this repeated travesty of young black men forfeiting their lives after encounters with men in blue, continue to play out?

Did the officer just assassinate this man who complied with all the cops commands  or did the policeman, through the colored distorted  lens of unexamined  bias  believe he was an inherent threat and in this bigoted reality actually perceive him to be reaching for a weapon?

 

 

I was thirty and getting ready to set up for my Wednesday aerobics class at a Jewish Center in Brooklyn. My regular elevator was out of service and so I was directed to walk through the senior center to use their elevator. I was lost in thought and oblivious to my surroundings. Once I got to the sixth floor which was isolated , I headed for the classroom at the end of the hall. After I set up before my students arrived, I headed for the small bathroom down the deserted hall. As I came out of the stall, within a nanosecond, I came to terms with a terrifying reality. I was not alone. I was put into a choke hold by a man who told me in a Carribean accent to "shut up". As he tackled me to the ground I could see he was a light skinned Black man.  I went into crisis mode and understood that his intention was to rape me. I knew rape was an act of power and violence--so I recognized that even if I could endure what was about to happen I might not survive.  In that instance, I called upon all my determination and strength I didn't know I possessed to force him to release me. All my focus was on returning to my two little boys who needed their mommy. There was no way I was not going to be there to watch them grow up.  I was able to  distract my assailant and it allowed me to extricate myself. He was unfamiliar with the women's bathroom. I used my advantage to turn the lights off and flee through the exit. Within seconds, he began chasing me. I cannot tell you how thrilled and grateful I was that two of my clients got off the elevator . In that moment my "would be rapist" fled.

   I mistakenly believed myself to be relatively unscathed and emotionally unscarred from this aborted attack.  Three things did change: My husband built an at home studio for my exercise business. I was never able to jog alone again and to this day if someone comes up behind me I let out an uncontrollable audible gasp  

 

Fast forward seven years. The headmaster at my sons' private school gives me a De Witt Wallace Diversity Grant to develop an Anti-Bias Parent's Group modeled on the student's group already underway.  We have just completed the first of what would be neverending workshops for parents to begin addressing and examining  our own biases  in order to advocate for the students and help to create a more inclusive school community. By all accounts this six hour retreat was a lovefest.  The consensus was that this diverse group of adults had really begun to bond   A single parent  approached me and asked if I could give him a lift home. He lived in the opposite direction of my home but that was a nonissue. What however was-- quickly surfaced from my buried unconscious, and manifested as an interior monologue  "Oh great. I started this group and now I am going to get raped." Yes, he was a light skinned Black Man with a Carribean accent but I was so incredibly stunned and ashamed by what had surfaced and polluted my thoughts .  I forced a smile and nervously drove him home. He was perfectly delightful and he and I went on to develop a really meaningful friendship. I never shared with him what his request had provoked in my unfiltered  thoughts.

I knew though that I was in serious trouble, How could I do this work when I was still haunted and traumatized by an earlier experience and it was spilling into and threatening to spoil  my interactions.? I sought out my faculty mentor and  shared what I was struggling with.  He told me to put out  my hands, and filled them with so much reading material.  He instructed  me that  I had homework to do. "Read all of this and do some serious soul-searching and then we will talk."

 

Of all the material I read, it was the story of a white Jewish woman raped by a Black  man that was the catalyst for positive change. During my initial reading, I admit to being shocked to learn that she went on to marry a black man and to be blissfully happy. Then it triggered a memory---- I was seventeen  in my cheerleader uniform getting ready to cheer for the afterschool basket ball game. My english teacher and dean summoned me into his office and closed the blinds. He used his position to take sexual advantage of me. In many ways,although it would be characterized as unwanted sexual advances and not attempted rape. it was more of a violation and betrayal because he was entrusted with my welfare and exploited and violated that trust. He was a white Jewish man. I went on to marry a white Jewish man.... So the question I asked myself was, "Why was I able to view this incident as an individual one and not blanketly fear and condemn other men of the same background?" I realized, it was because I had had so much exposure to men of that  background and had had no previous negative notions of them. I had never  bought into mythology of them as sexual predators and so it  became an aberration and an isolated incident and  any anger or vulnerability that lingered was attached to a particular person and not an entire group.  I realized then---I had a lot of work to do on myself.

I made a conscious decision to alter my behavior. Praying that with positive experiences, I would unlearn the negativity. I would deliberately change my actions and in time, hoped that my heart and mind would open itself up to a new way of embracing others. I did not quicken my step if I was in the proximity of those who reminded me of my assailant. I walked up staircases with young black men. I engaged men of color in conversation when in an elevator alone. I sought them out for directions. All the time I continued the workshops on Race with the diverse group of parents. I learned to be an active listener and to hear what the experiences had been of Men of Color and their fears for their young sons in our racist society. I participated in so many experiential exercises that helped peel away all of the  defensive armor we wore and began to confront and address all of the early messages I had received about Race and The Other.. I would ask questions and share very personal stories. Sometimes I would leave these workshops and want to pull the covers over my head and I would cry for days. I was changing and for the first time really cultivating and developing  deep and brutally honest relationships with people from very different races, class, and sexual orientation.

I was encouraged to get certified as a Diversity Trainer so that I could facillitate workshops for faculty,students and parents and train young people to have these conversations with younger students and become agents for change within the school community.

That journey required hours and hours of attending retreats focused on confronting our own bias and addressing it . I started to feel more secure and passionate about this work... Then I attended a Diversity Workshop for trainers  lead by The Panel of Americans. I was just one of two white participants.

We began the day by sitting around a long conference table. The leaders explained the first exercise. We were to break into our Affinity Groups and for 90 minutes  discuss what it meant to be a member of our Race. The facilitator asked if there were any questions.

I raised my hand--and said" I came here to learn and to hear from others nd since there are only two White particpants here could we reconsider the time allotment for this exercise?"