DESOTO, TX – With the recent news of the unfortunate deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, I see and hear the pain and unrest of our community and communities across this country.
As I watch the protests, I see the many voices and perspectives of these experiences. I see human beings combining their energy and influence to better the position and experience of African Americans in this country. In those crowds, I see faces from every race and walk of life, an image that poses a familiar similarity in the support of civil rights and equality and a dramatic shift from the segregationist times in which I grew up.
I was a teenager in the ‘60s and remember the strife of the era. Until a few years ago, I felt that we had made great strides in race relations, but recent events have made me feel that we are back in the ’60s and have gone nowhere at all. It is very disheartening to me to feel so much hatred, especially since I have so many friends of all races.
As human beings, we all have our perspectives and experiences. My challenge to our community is that as we continue along life’s journey that we do so with respect and empathy for others and sensitivity for the experiences of those that we ourselves may never face. I challenge us to examine the dark and ugly places within our hearts and purge them from ourselves. There is goodness and hope in each and every person in this world but we have to maximize that. We have to lean into and lead with that. Here, is where we will develop shared understanding, tolerance and empathy for the imbalance that exists in this world.
To our families in DeSoto and Glenn Heights, we stand with you. We see you. We hear you. We value you. As a diverse Board of Trustees, we are here to ensure that you have access to a school system that embraces a culture that takes what makes us unique and special and uses that as the glue that makes DeSoto ISD a school community knit together in the beautiful fabric of every race and culture within our system.
While we pause in acknowledgment and lamentation of our current reality, I pray that we can one day live in a better world where today’s reality is no more, where every child has every point of access, opportunity, safety, and security regardless of race, color or creed.
As the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was quoted, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
Karen Daniel
Board President
DeSoto ISD Board of Trustees
