(Beaver Dam) “Well, I look at everything, well not everything, I mean, I’m a white woman, right? So, I have not as many problems as other people. But in my work, I have a bias maybe toward Hispanic [or] Latino families and the problems that they go through and the fears that they have. There are things that I know they don’t tell me, and then when they do feel comfortable telling me, then I shudder and think ‘Oh my gosh, what is it that they don’t feel comfortable telling me?’ Yikes. That’s not okay. What can I do? I hope that I can use my position of privilege and my position to advocate for them. There’s no solving a problem unless you recognize that there is a problem, and you can’t recognize a problem without talking about it. So, let’s talk.”
Those remarks were made at the Beaver Dame Area Community Theater during a recent community panel discussion on racism and cultural prejudice by Betsy Ramsdale. She is a bilingual family liaison for the Beaver Dam Unified School District. The topic of conversation was racism and cultural prejudice. The purpose of the discussion was to bring awareness to those topics at the local level.
Ramsdale goes on to say that she knows there are aspects of life that her Hispanic or Latino co-workers do not share with her, and shudders at what those could be. When they do, she wonders how she could help. In addition, she hopes to use her position of white privilege to advocate for those who face issues of racism.
In our next story, we will be highlighting the comments made by Rob Meyer, director of teaching and learning at the Beaver Dam Unified School District.
