Danielle S. Castillejo

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The Binds of Injustice

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My coffee sits to the right of my computer. The training team is logged onto zoom, riffing – joking about muting and unmuting one another. Our typical zoom shenanigans. My friend grins. She mutes me. I love to play. The five faces are smiling. I glance at my own – yeah, I look contained, not too anxious. These women care deeply for one another, and for me. I am safe, for now.

I am waiting. A longer buzz of my phone and watch indicates an email arrival. Folders in my email account contain countless emails to OSPI and the state, asking for help. In response, the state of Washington gave multiple extensions to the investigation team hired by the school district in late February 2023 to investigate 90 complaints – complaints we only submitted to North Kitsap School District after the Latino/a/x community was unable to access any restorative justice or meaningful dialogue. It was never an option.

Buzzzzzzzzzz.

It’s them.

A short email, an attached 3-page document. Hastily, I click on the email from the district telling us folks of color if we count or not. The first page is mostly a reference to applicable laws. Next, are brief summaries of the investigation. Notably, the investigation found email complaint 27 to be knowingly false, which highlighted “Dress Like a Mexican” day proposed at a local elementary as a part of spirit week.

Pause.

Two other complaints are briefly mentioned, with a quick summary of their response.

The last page is a list of my right to appeal.

After asking for additional information, I received two separate reports of 18 and 41 pages, respectively. Only 4 parents were interviewed (not including myself), outside of district staff, and in the other report, only administrative staff are listed as interviewed.

During the week-of-Thanksgiving-Tuesday night meeting in November 2022 nearly 50 people shared stories of harm, pain and discrimination in our schools. Luckily, it was documented by Pei-yu Lin, a reporter from the county’s major press. The five colleagues with whom I co-lead this trauma training believe these stories. Trauma informed care and movement towards healing, begin with believing the stories of those harmed.

Only 4 parents were interviewed. Baffled, I stew in the audacity to prioritize administrative staff voices over these parents.

February 7th, 2023, we hosted a town hall celebrating, grieving, story-ing, and solution-izing the unresolved historical and current circumstances of racism and discrimination. With support from Kitsap County’s diverse communities, I cast my hope for the collaborative solutions we presented to the school district – all 7 of them.

The parent voices who risked sharing their stories in November, are silenced by the justice system in a few sentences explaining, the lack of details, lack of information, and lack of specificity. North Kitsap’s larger community is disregarded in their pursuit of 7 solutions.

Our solutions are simple, concise, accessible and bring more than one marginalized group together. However, despite these reasonable solutions, the Latino/a/x community was accused of being a single parent reporting racial violence, to discredit numerous others. In this short 3-page letter, almost none of our concerns or stories are validated, nor engaged to pursue justice, well, the kind of justice that applies to all people.

Justice is served, according to the North Kitsap School District for their white administrators and policies. Their own stories prioritized over our families voices in the investigation, as well.

I sip my coffee. Breathe.

We live in a world of injustice governed by unjust systems, with complex complaint forms to address discrimination, and procedural requirements that protect their white creators. They all insure the absence of justice for our families.

Michelle Obama says, “When they go low, we go high.” My dear African American colleague reminds me that supremacy creates a false dichotomy of the choices you have in a scenario – creating false equivalencies which are rarely true.

Supremacy asks Latino/a/x families to accept the lack of a substantive investigation, give up, or appeal all 90 complaints – to prove a point. If I don’t appeal, do I let myself and countless others down? If I appeal to a group of folks with who I know don’t value our community, do I subject us to further blatant injustice? The bind returns us to our epistemology. How we know what we know?  Is what it is right based on unjust systems, policies, or their authors? Do I know what is right because of the inherent belief in another’s humanity – even the humanity of oppressors – because we are both in a system of oppression meant to drive us toward endless conflict rather than a system designed and functioning to provide access and belonging in the education to our community’s youth?

What is the third way? I don’t know. Our Latino/a/x community grounds our resiliency in hope, love, and hospitality. Resiliency, hope, hospitality, and love aren’t without pain, despair, and distress. We navigate binds, because they are within us, as well. We long for newness amidst grief, anger, and complex systems oppressing us. However, we won’t put our ganas into unjust systems to placate powerful white administrators or their lawyers. We won’t be used to throw fiestas to cover the shame of an unjust investigation.

Breathe. Exhale. Together.

The urgency of supremacy demands a response, so for now, we wait – in comunidad, wait for settled-ness – and amor to lead the way.

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