Healing While Black and White: Part One

To honor the last day of Black History Month and the beginning of Women’s History Month, we  are publicly sharing a moving conversation between two women—one black, and one white. 

With their permission and care, these two women, Courtney Bell and Angela Bond, tell the story of how they became each other’s “people”—experiencing a sense of belonging to one another. Their bond has created a becoming in their personal lives, as well the life of their shared organization. 

Courtney Bell is the Managing Director of Talent at KIPP Metro Atlanta. Growing up in Buford, Georgia, her family emphasized the pursuit of education. After graduating college and earning her master’s, Courtney heard of KIPP through a friend. After learning that the school was founded by a Black woman, she pursued a position at the school. She has been with KIPP for 10 years.

Angela Bond is the Chief Strategy Officer at KIPP Metro Atlanta. Originally from New Hartford, Connecticut, she moved to the DC area for college and to surround herself with more diversity than her hometown. After teaching at a KIPP program in New Orleans, she moved to Atlanta, where she was able to find a position with the Atlanta KIPP program. Angela has been with KIPP for 10 years.

This interview was not scripted or rehearsed. We provide excerpts of the transcript as a tool for organizations and teams to use as a window and mirror into more relationships and interactions. Honoring their wishes, we encourage readers to look at this relationship as a case study of possibility. In part one of the conversation, We are Spirits in Bodies, we follow Courtney and Angela as they discuss the moments they first became aware of their respective racial identities. Towards the end of this excerpt, they also describe what it felt like to begin talking about race at work.

It is our hope that transparency and visibility can help us all write the Next Story together. 

Parts of this interview have been edited or condensed for clarity.

We are Spirits in Bodies

Caroline: Courtney, talk to us about when you realized what it meant to be in a Black body.

Courtney: I think probably it was in middle school, when I started to realize that I was in a Black body. Before that, I didn't really see any difference. Obviously, I would listen in at the grown people at the grown folks' table when you're supposed to be outside, so I got it a little bit there, but actually having an experience where I was truly impacted and then had to go home to my mom and ask a couple of questions happened in middle school.

So there was one experience where I was in a pageant, and at the conclusion of the pageant, I won first runner-up and my best friend who was white, she won the pageant. So my mom is friends with a lady that's just huge into pageants, and the judges had reached out to her to say, "We're just talking about the pageant," and they did say, "The little Black girl, I voted for her. I thought she was going to win," and then she started to make connections that all of her friends were actually judging this pageant. Actually, she reached out to a couple more and figured out that they had all voted for me.

She's a white female, but she called my mom and she said, "I think there's an issue," and she was like... I think she's on the National Board of Pageants in Georgia. She's like, "I have an obligation that I have to report this, but this will bring a lot of limelight to you and Courtney, but I just want to let you know I have to." So my mom was like, "It's okay, but let me talk to Courtney about it, too." So, anyway, she reported it. My mom had a conversation with me. She said, "Look, I want to let you know what happened. They're looking into it. The judges actually did vote for you. We are trying to figure out what may have happened." So they did the investigation. Come to find out that there's the person who passes the actual little ballot to the person who makes the announcement. She made the change, and she's actually a teacher at the school, a white teacher at the school, and who was known, really, to be racist, honestly.

So, anyway, my mom came to me. I was in middle school. I had two options. They did leave it to me. My mom was like, "I think that you should make this decision. I'll support whatever you decide." I could choose to have an event where they actually give me the crown and remove the crown from her, or, basically, the school could be on a suspension and not be able to have pageants for a period of time and there's really just nothing that's said about it. So, anyway, I did tell my mom, I said, "I think that I'm going to go with the option to not do anything and have the school be suspended because I do want them not to have pageants." But I was like, "The moment's gone, and I don't want to take the moment away from her when she had no idea what was happening. It's not fair to her." So, anyway, that experience was like, "Wow, because I was on stage in one and I'm literally in a Black body, that experience was taken away from me."

The second experience happened within the same year, and it was basically where a teacher... I had scored high enough on standardized testing to be pushed into algebra in eighth grade so that then, when I got to high school, I would start with trigonometry, which would push me as when I graduated, I'd be eligible for AP courses. The teacher came to me and basically said, "You did test into algebra, but I think that that would be too hard for you, and so I think that you should stay in the regular math class in eighth grade." So, in the moment, I thought she was there to support me. My mom always said, "You can ask questions respectfully to adults. You just have to be respectful, but you can always ask questions."

So I was like, "Well, I appreciate your care for me, but if I don't do well in algebra at any point in the year, could I move back to regular math," and she said, "Yes, you could do that." I said, "Well, I don't see a problem with me trying. I should try, right?" I can remember the expression on her face was kind of like... She did not want to say that I should try, but she had to because she knew it was wrong. But that's me reflecting back on the experience. In the moment, I still thought she cared. But every time now that I look back on the experience, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, she didn't care about me. She was really trying to get me to not go in that class." It makes me tear up even thinking about it right now because in that baby body, I was still thinking she cared and loved me.

So, anyway, those were the two experiences that I realized that I am definitely in a Black body and there's a different type of interaction I'm having, and that's some of the times where me and Mom were having some of our first conversations about it. I would go home and talk to her about it, and then that's when she started to give me a little bit more information and support me on that journey of what was coming next, which was where we started to have these conversations around... I had a lot of white friends in school, and so she started to prep me for, "That may shift, Courtney. I hadn't wanted to tell you this. I wanted to wait till the right time. But once you graduate from high school, you may see a shift in the number of white friends you have because"... Basically, she said, "They will start to live their white life now."

So she was like, "But there will be some that you'll keep. I just don't want you to be heartbroken because you have some really close relationships." My friends really did care about me in that time, but she was right. When we graduated from high school, I actually kept one white friend, but the rest of my friends, they just didn't stay in touch. We would go on trips together. There were no more trips together. Those things started to shift. So it was middle school and on, is when I started to realize it.

Caroline: Angela, how did your parents explain to you what it meant to be in a white body, if at all?

Angela: They didn't. We never talked about race or anything. I can't recall a single conversation growing up. I think I learned mostly from media and TV, and I think that doesn't send a... That reinforces privilege and white being the majority and the norm, and it was never a conversation.

Caroline: So, Angela, you said that your awareness became more clear late adolescence, early adulthood. Courtney, your awareness was developing as early as early adolescence, like late childhood, early adolescence. Talk to me about how people, Black bodies and white bodies, interacted at KIPP when you got there, and how did you all become friends?

Courtney: It’s hard for me to think about how we interacted because it is different, I feel like, than the way we interact now. We didn't talk about race, and Angela can push me, but I am trying to recall where race was ever brought up as a conversation. Now, we might have had conversations around... Maybe it was more around maybe females versus males, that dynamic, but I think we..

Angela: People would make fun of me being white. I was often the only white person in spaces, and so I remember some of the leaders would... One of them had a book on their shelf, like Things White People Do, and he used to open it when we would have check-ins, and he'd be like, "Angela, is this something you like to do?" We'd make a joke about it, like, "White people like to go camping and like the outdoors. Angela, do you like the outdoors?" I'd be like, "I do actually like the outdoors. I didn't realize that was a solely white thing." So I would have conversations but in a kind of lighthearted way.

Courtney: Yeah. We didn't. I don't recall us talking about race at all or... Yeah. I don't think there was much interaction at first.

Caroline: So what happened when you started talking about race?

Courtney: About five years ago, we started to have these conversations around all of us being wounded warriors, so that's where that language came in. We had some of our initial trainings five years ago around race and basically doing what they did at TFA, right, having these conversations around your identity and how it's race but it's also your privilege and you're Christian and you're married and you have kids and all these types of things. I think that is when it started to click even more, just the differences even amongst... I think, even being in a Black region, we were also understanding the privilege even amongst us as Black leaders, too, right, even within... Because it's like, "Well, we're Black, we don't have any issues," right?

People started to lift their heads, and then, also, people started to be like, "I'm trying to do this work, but I have wounds. There are things that from my childhood I'm still dealing with." So we weren't quite ready to say what it is that people were dealing with, but people were at least acknowledging that they wanted to be in the work but they had their own wounds, and so we would start to share these stories with each other. Even privately, me and Angela started to have conversations. Every now and then, people would kind of throw something out in a meeting, but people still didn't feel totally comfortable with just talking about it outright. That was five years ago.

Courtney: Then, right before we started working with [228 Accelerator] three years ago, we had started to push it a little bit, and we had started to be a little bit more open around surface-level issues. So, initially, you had an issue with someone, and it's like, "Oh, I just need to give them feedback," but we started to peel back this other layer, like, "No, what is the root? Why do me and you still... Why do we continue to still have issues?" So about three years ago is where we started to take it from the surface-level conversation and say, "Where is this coming from." We started to do that as a leadership team and started to uncover some issues from five, six years ago… deep-seated things that people were carrying from years ago as it related with each other.

Caroline: Carrying from before you all were even in an organization together?

Courtney: Mm-hmm (affirmative). 

Caroline: So, Angela, I would love to hear your experience with this because I think the common discourse right now, if you turn on the news, they would say conversations about race are derisive and divisive and oppressive and create shame and guilt in white bodies and for a white woman.

Angela: If I go back, and I think having language and a lot more understanding now about whiteness and what is white culture, I had never really thought about that before or dissected it. But if I look back at some of my earlier experiences at KIPP or conversations with bosses, which I worked for a Black female when I first came and she taught me so much about the importance of building relationships to move work forward and, "Oh, if you're communicating, email isn't always the best, call or text, or if you're going to send an email, make sure you have... You're not just diving right into the work. Have your greeting." Courtney's smiling because she knows I still go right to the business and when I write emails, I get to the content and then I go back and I'm like, "Okay, I have to have my opening," which is important and I value that.

But when I first started, it was not in my way of working. So, now, I look back and I'm like, "Oh, you were like coaching me on some things that are definitely ingrained in white supremacy culture, like individualism and being just focused on outcomes and not necessarily valuing relationships." So I can reflect on some of my earlier years and my development as an employee, which I guess kind of was like coaching to assimilate into not predominantly white space, which is interesting now that I help coach their employees and I can have those conversations where I'm like, "Well, you are not valuing the relationship. When have you talked to this person? And you're just going to email them with six asks? And then you're surprised when you don't get what you want?"

So, now, I can reflect on my first boss and her coaching of me, and I think she helped give me tools without naming, though, that that was me as a white woman working in Black spaces. It wasn't talked about with my race back then, but I think she taught me how to navigate. It's probably why I'm still here, because I was like, "Oh, okay, let me change. Let me grow. This is interesting." I never thought about valuing those things as different values, if that makes sense, and now I do understand. I'm like, "Oh, that's my whiteness, that's me being white," and can recognize it now.

Courtney: Which I think that's the shift, right? So Angela actually says that. Now, it's like, in our workspace, Angela is like, "That's us being white. That's the whiteness showing up." We say that in the space where, before, we maybe would say what the issue is but wouldn't name it. Now, we all name it. We're like, "We're valuing white culture. We're elevating it above our other teammates." So we actually use the language and use it with each other, and now we have the conversation with each other, and now we're branching out. Now, we're starting to use that language with our board. So that's, I think, the difference, is we never said it before and now we're saying it. That makes a difference to me.

Angela: I think that you asked about my experience as a white woman when we started talking about race. I mean, I think there's definitely been uncomfortable moments, especially when a light bulb goes off and I'm like, "Oh my god, that is racism in me," and like, "Oh. Sorry. Let me, like, learn something new.". I think you have to be uncomfortable to grow.

Courtney: I think that's where I can appreciate Angela, in that she's a human, and so it's painful to identify that that's something that you're doing, but she will be like, "And I want to shift that." So then she will pick up and figure that out. She's not seeking it from us to get to the solution. Then she's like, "I need to figure out how to address this or how to support more." So I think that's where I guess I can appreciate her shift more than others that maybe I've interacted with.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The concept of healing has become centered in our discourse of race and equity. But there are still debates about where something so private belongs in public life. 

Should work become places of healing and restoration? Should schools and classrooms and learning spaces reemerge as sanctuaries of respite? These are all relevant design questions and considerations. 

Ignoring and marginalizing these important questions simply assumes that our bodies, minds, and spirits remained whole during the COVID-19 pandemic and our most recent collective racial reckoning. Ignoring these questions assumes suffering that we hold in our wired hands is somehow disconnected from our private and public experience. 

The suffering in Yemen, Sudan, Afghanistan, Ukraine, our homes, street corners, hallways, cafeterias, and classrooms, are all calls for healing. We can debate the right place for this intimate, private journey of healing. We can argue about best practices. But the debate of its rightful place does not change its impact on our public life. So many varied methodologies and approaches simply illustrate the desperate need for something that works—a way to become whole again. These might be the most important design questions to ponder, grapple, and elevate.

A broken body doesn't achieve at the highest levels. A broken spirit does not recover from learning loss. A broken body just breaks other bodies. 

The Black Next Story asks us to reconcile the separation between our public performances and private lives. This act of becoming whole in America asks us to face the mechanism of our separation—the breaking and fracture—and embody the boldness and the bravery to move with accountability and design our spaces and places for healing and reconciliation.