Goodbye Stranger, It’s Been Nice

I will not seek re-election in 2021 to the Waunakee Community School District seat to represent Westport, Middleton and Madison.

This isn’t a recent decision, as I’ve shared this with many people over the course of the last several weeks and months. I do think it prudent to share now publicly.

To fully explain this to both myself and anyone who cares to listen, I have to be honest. My reasons for not running again are largely selfish. I am tired. If the position only required being verbally abused, I could handle it. After all, I am a cis-gendered, heterosexual, non-disabled, white, male, home owner who lives in affluent community. I am basically the living definition of privileged.

I am weary for different reasons. This year has required hundreds of hours of work away from my family that I did not expect. I have two young children who are absolutely wonderful and absolutely maddening, and a partner who picks up all the slack when I’m unavailable. Spending hundreds of hours of my free time on the BOE is unfair to them. I am tired of my boys crying because their Dad is gone at work all day, then gone all night for board meetings.

In full disclosure, I made up my mind on this decision months ago. To be precise, I decided to not seek another term on the Board shortly after an anonymous individual called my office and called me a “N****r lover”. I don’t precisely know why this individual made this particular statement, but it wasn’t lost on me that this call followed my endorsement of Joel Lewis and the district’s authorization of the Ad Hoc Committee on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. This call went hand in hand with anti-semitic and racist letters I received regarding Robert McPherson’s candidacy for Village Board, as well as Joel’s prior candidacy for school board.

I want no sympathy for these incidents. I deliberately bring attacks on myself. In truth, this was my plan all along. I think leaders should stand out in front and take the shots so others don’t have to. I would much rather it be me who is attacked, rather than an administrator, a teacher, or a student having to deal with it. And I fully acknowledge that my being attacked on occassion pales in comparison to the daily stress and anxiety that many others in our community face due to nothing more than their not being accepted, either due to their gender identity, their sexuality, their race, or their country of origin.

None of this, however, has made this year any easier to deal with. It just made the decision easier.

I am concerned that running for public office at this time would be an entirely selfish act. It is not lost on me that there will likely be single-issue candidates running for school board races in April that are solely focused on rushing schools back to in-person class, consequences be damned. Voters should be wary of anyone supported by those who peddle false advocacy for the community without disclosure of their own self-interests.

In truth – I don’t know what is best for the community. While many agree with my aggressive and often critical stances, many do not. I acknowledge and respect this. I can say what is not best for the community would be to listen to those who are interested in silencing others, in pushing their own self-interests above all else, and those who are not willing to engage in open, honest debate. Above all else, I want to leave the district with the perspective that criticism is an honest form of love. And I want our community to get to a place where acts of racism, anti-semitism and bigotry are not merely condemned – but prevented. We prevent these acts through education, but also through things like equitable housing policies. We prevent them through ethical leadership, accessibility and transparency. I remain concerned that powerful forces within our community remain opposed to these principles.

I love my community. I want it to be better than it is. I fear that in our community, we seek only the changes that avoid pain. I am reminded of MLK’s reference to a “negative peace”. True enough, I have been repeatedly told that it “is not the right time” for change in our community…

I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.”

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

Martin Luther King, Jr “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” 1963

It is my sincere hope that the community is able to work together and move forward in this challenging time. We must continue to advocate for change for the benefit of all community members.

Now is the only time we truly have.

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