Charles Williams

Color blindness is a well-intentioned but inherently flawed approach to equity. During this session, I will share how my mother and grandparents attempted to protect me from the harsh realities of the world by stripping me of one-half of my ethnicity. By subduing my blackness and highlighting my whiteness, they believed that I would be better embraced in the various environments in which I would eventually navigate. While this approach equipped me with the social norms and tools to understand these spaces, nothing they did could change the fact that I looked nothing like those around me. In fact, this very approach robbed me of the essential knowledge that I needed to interact meaningfully with those who did look like me. This session will explore, through laughter and tears (maybe), how I struggled to discover my identity as a black(ish) person and showcase just how damaging adopting a color blind mentality can be.

Equity is one of the hottest topics in education today but it doesn’t just happen. Leaders must be intentional about developing their own equity stance, curating approaches to ensure that their school communities embrace these ideologies, and cultivating systems to ensure lasting change. Join me as we use the Equity Framework developed by a team of educators in Chicago Public Schools to address an equity challenge identified in your own space. Attendees will walk away with a personalized purpose that they can share with their school communities and practical resources to begin doing this essential work.