Dear Dean Magazine: September 2023

M Y R O N J . C L I F T O N
between Black and Hispanic/Latino women compared to
white women. And we are fighting for better health care,
better public safety nets, and better resources for
unhoused people, and for veterans.
The water we tread is tinged red from the deaths of
adults and children killed by guns. That same water
contains the blood of those killed by police for hundreds
of years, and the remnants of the drugs of those who
have fallen from addiction to substances made by
wealthy companies owned by wealthy people.
The nation has refused to consider the opinions of
victims of itself, preferring instead to listen to those who
perpetrate the evil or those who willingly block attempts
at resolutions.
We cannot move forward because we are stuck in the
muck and mire of hate, racism, misogyny, and supremacy.
We breed generation after generation of white people
who only want what is best for white people and who
persistently vote to harm everyone else.
What makes it all so frustrating is that these battles have
been fought — and won! — time and again but no matter
how positive the results are for everyone, for business,
and for communities, each new generation spawns new
attempts to undue progress and return America to its
worst self.
meals.
We’re still fighting a nationwide nimbyism battle for
much needed housing. And we’re fighting for inclusion of
Black history from K-12 and even at the university level.
We are fighting for school funding for inner city schools,
and for equal salaries and benefits for the teachers who
teach Black, Hispanic/Latino, and Indigenous kids. And
we’re fighting against, again, private schools — which are
predominately in white neighborhoods and filled with
kids from wealthy families, from stealing school funds
from non-white schools.
We are fighting gerrymandering especially but not
exclusively in the South, and we’re fighting to get states
such as Alabama to follow the law as they were told to do
by the Supreme Court. But like their confederate
forefathers, they are ignoring the law and defying the
Supreme Court.
Nothing is new, all things have been done before.
We are re-fighting and re-losing The War on Drugs, and
this time it is opiods as the main driver killing hundreds of
thousands of people. Families, cities, schools, and
communities are being devastated and no one is being
held accountable, unless you count relatively insignificant
monetary fines to billionaire families.
Just in past few years we’ve seen over one-hundred
voting laws changes designed to make voting harder
specifically for Black voters.
We’ve seen republicans rage and legislate against free
breakfast and lunch for kids, all the while they get free
DEAR DEAN MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER 2023 | p.27