Work for white people
White people will have to do the heavy lifting to end institutionalized racism. Several incidents in my life have taught me that lesson. Here’s the story about one of those times. Photo by Jumana Khaled Dakkur Many years ago, when I began to serve on a board of a nonprofit organization that promoted historic preservation in a city in Ohio, I heard my fellow board members (all white people) voice concern about the fact that the vast majority of the membership and all of the directors of the organization did not include people of color. My colleagues on that board were wondering if the black community did not care about historic preservation. Nonsense, I thought. I called my friend CD who was interested in restoring and preserving a music hall/theatre that was much like Fort Myers’ McCollum Hall , only larger. (Duke Ellington had performed in both of these places.) I knew CD because my husband and I are jazz fans, and we liked to...