A Pew Charitable Trusts study quoted in the Los Angeles Times reports that, in 2004, the median income for a man in his 30s was $35,010, 12% less than that of men in their 30s in 1974, adjusted for inflation, according to the study, which was based on Census Bureau data. Researchers focused on that age group because income in one’s 30s is a good predictor of lifetime income, according to the report.
And are any of the candidates (aside from John Edwards) talking about this?
Below are remarks I was to give in Washington on Thursday, May 10, at a symposium celebrating the accomplishments and retirement of my friend Abigail Wiebenson, the Head of the Lowell School and a pioneer in welcoming LGBT families to her community. I was too sick to go, so I am publishing them here so everyone can know how fabulous Abigail is!
When I was in college, a wise professor Chuck Wiley (one of the few black professors at Harvard then) told me how every social justice movement was based on what he called the “courageous push” by people without privilege and the “compassionate pull” by those who had privilege. He used as his model the Underground Railroad, by which thousands of enslaved African-Americans sought freedom in the antebellum era. The “courageous push” was made by the enslaved African-Americas, who literally risked life and limb by seeking their freedom. But he pointed out that, without allies, this courageous push would have failed. It took the “compassionate pull” of those who had the privilege of freedom, especially white people, who were willing to use their homes as the “stations” on the Underground Railroad, for the whole system to work. Without people of privilege standing by their side and helping “pull” them to freedom, these enslaved African-Americans “pushing”” against the system of domination would he been much less likely to succeed. You needed both types for social justice movements to succeed, Professor Wiley said.
As someone who has spent much of his life seeking social justice for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students, school staff, and families, I have seen the truth of Mr. Wiley’s concept borne out by my own experience working in schools. It was a straight student, for example, who stepped forward to work with me to start the nation’s first Gay-Straight Alliance student club at Concord Academy in 1988. The daughter of a lesbian, she said she was simply “tired of hearing her family get put down around this school” and worried that no student who was actually gay could step forward to lead such an effort in such an intolerant environment. I had made a “courageous push” by being one of the first teachers in the independent school world to “come out” as gay to his students but, without her “compassionate pull,” there would have been no GSA: because of it, I am proud to report that there are now over 3,500 GSA’s registered with GLSEN.
A final frontier in the struggle for equity for LGBT students, staff, and families in schools is the elementary level. Traditionally, one way groups without privilege have been denied that privilege is by portraying them as a threat to children. Jews supposedly drank the blood of children in the Passover Seder (the so-called blood libel), justifying pogroms; black men supposedly were after little white girls, justifying lunching; and gay people supposedly molest or “recruit” children to be gay, which has been used to justify all manner of nonsense. Given the volatility of this charge and the understandably-strong reaction parents have to something they perceive as a threat to their children’s’ well-being, addressing LGBT issues with elementary school children has often been a place where even LGBT people ear to read. It has just been too courageous of a push for many.
Enter Abigail Wiebenson.
A decade ago, when this issue was on no one’s radar screen, Abigail deiced to sue her position of power as a school head and her position of privilege as a straight person to give ea “compassionate pull” to LGBT issues and, in particular, to LGBT parents looking for a safe place for their children to go to school. She “recruited” such families who, she understood, were not a “threat” but were like every other family in that all they wanted was the best for their kids. She took active steps to make Lowell School a welcoming place for them. And she did not back down when others expressed their fears about this: she was unequivocal in her commitment to all families being welcome at Lowell.
What is in some ways sad is that these actions make Abigail seem remarkable. Not because Abigail isn’t remarkable – she is – but that actions that come so naturally to her are still so rare as to strike me as so remarkable I came down to DC to tell you about them. Few school “leaders” show the kind of leadership that comes naturally to Abigail, who is always thinking about those without privilege and how she might use her own power and privilege to provide the “compassionate pull” those folks need to feel indeed at Lowell. American Express used to say that “membership has its privileges”: Abigail understands that “membership in a privileged group carries with it responsibility.” Far too few privileged people get that, which so why Abigail’s actions remain remarkable.
So I salute Abigail for being the “compassionate puller” she has always been throughout her career. I only wish she would get to work on the cloning technology we need so there were a few more of her leading schools across America.
