When I Grow Up, I Want to Be A Monster - Conversation Guide
Conversation Guide: Recognizing and Transforming the Monster Within
This guide is designed to facilitate deep, meaningful conversations about equity, accountability, and building stronger relationships across lines of difference. It is structured around the key themes in the provided text and focuses on recognition, responsibility, and repair—helping individuals and communities confront the "monsters" within and around them while fostering relationships built on trust, truth, and transformation.
Conversation Objectives
Recognize how oppression is normalized and how violence (both physical and systemic) is excused.
Acknowledge the ways historical and present injustices continue to shape relationships.
Commit to doing equity work as an act of repair and transformation.
Strengthen relationships through honest, courageous dialogue.
Conversation Agreements (To Set the Space)
Before beginning, establish shared agreements to create a brave and accountable space:
Truth Over Comfort – Be willing to sit with discomfort in service of deeper understanding.
Hold Complexity – People are not wholly good or evil. Understanding does not mean excusing.
Listen to Understand, Not to Respond – Make space for reflection before reaction.
Equity is Action – Talking is not enough. Commit to meaningful, sustained action.
Section 1: Recognizing the Monsters Among and Within Us
Opening Reflection (5 min)
What emotions come up for you after reading this passage?
Have you ever encountered a "monster"—someone whose presence felt both ordinary and terrifying?
Have you ever struggled with recognizing injustice because it appeared in a familiar, even likable, form?
Discussion Prompts
“Terror wears the face of normalcy.” What does this mean in your personal or professional life?
The narrator describes a moment of bodily reaction to fear (locked knees, sweaty palms, inability to breathe). When have you felt this way in response to injustice?
Monsters are often made, not born. How does systemic oppression shape people into "monsters" who perpetuate harm?
What is the relationship between memory, amnesia, and absolution in America’s history with oppression? Who receives forgiveness, and who does not?
Have you ever had the opportunity to speak up against harm but remained silent? What held you back?
Section 2: Seeing Clearly – The Corrective Lens of Equity Work
Reflection Exercise: "Take Your Glasses Off" (10 min)
Think about a time when you realized the world was not as you had been taught to see it.
What led to this realization? What changed in your understanding?
How did this affect your relationships—with yourself, your community, or your work?
Discussion Prompts
The narrator describes “saccharin solidarity”—a false unity that ignores the realities of history and power.
How does this show up in conversations about race, gender, and equity?
How can we move toward real, structurally supported solidarity instead?
“The harm we don’t free with our mouths possesses the body.”
What are the consequences of unspoken pain—personally and collectively?
How does silence allow oppression to continue?
How does selective grace and absolution shape our legal, educational, and political systems?
How do we extend second chances to some while permanently punishing others?
Section 3: Repairing Relationships – Moving from Acknowledgment to Action
Commitment Reflection (10 min)
What is one step you can take to challenge injustice when you see it?
How can you support others in having the courage to speak and act?
How will you hold yourself accountable to continue this work?
Action-Oriented Discussion
Equity work kills the monster to save the human.
What does this mean in the context of education, policy, leadership, or community work?
The narrator calls equity work “the connective tissue of our human identity.”
How can we use relationship-building to heal divisions in our workplaces, families, and communities?
What would a world where second chances were available to all—not just the privileged—look like?
What actions must we take to create this world?
How do we prepare future generations to do this work?
How do we ensure today’s children grow up to be more than monsters?
Closing Exercise: The Future We Choose
Take a moment to imagine a future shaped by equity work.
What does justice feel like?
What does grace look like?
How does truth-telling change our communities?
Final Commitment:
Each participant shares one concrete action they will take to ensure equity work continues—whether in their personal relationships, workplace, or broader community.
Final Thought
"Once again, we are in the age of monsters. But we have a choice. We always have a choice."
This conversation guide is not just about words—it is about transformation. The monsters of history return when we refuse to confront them. Equity work is the correction, the repair, and the resistance against dehumanization. It is about turning moments of terror into pathways toward truth, healing, and collective liberation.
Are we willing to do the work?
