God bless the transformers

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek." —Barack Obama

When Barak Obama was elected president there was a collective exhaling of African Americans nationally. It was an emotional milestone pregnant with hope, opportunity, and optimism. For once, black excellence was spotlighted after an eternity of concentration on black failure.

If any of us believed that the moment was an end in of itself, we were wrong. It was only a door unlocking, not a door revolving. To fulfill the promise and meaning of Obama's achievement we would need to commit to working for transformation of ourselves and the larger community.

If nothing else, Obama was a challenge to us as aspirational African Americans, not as much to America. His biography is one of personal achievement, self-belief, and rising against all odds. Our story, together, has not always been the same, but it can be.

The question for our local African American community is have we learned from Obama's example, or have we merely spent a short time reveling in his victory (as if it is ours) while maintaining our old ways of being?

What is the old way of being?

The Africans American relationship with Twin Cities institutions of power has been a transactional one for decades. That is partially by design and partially by our own doing. The system of power once locked us out and only interacted with us through cynical transactions akin to buying anti-riot insurance. Unfortunately, some in our community played into the game by relishing the financial benefits of professional protest.

Some "leaders" have made a career of dissenting for profit, and making demands for personal gain. Conversely, many of our people have toiled out of the spotlight, doing the hard work of creating civic structures that benefit all of us. It is up to us which we would rather be and which leaders we would rather invest in.

In my time on the Minneapolis School Board I have seen the best of us, the worst of us, and the indifferent middle. Everyone knows that the condition of poor children in Minnesota is an embarrassment that stands as a moral indictment against us all. As foundations and government entities pour millions of dollars into the problem, we have to ask if we are part of the solution or are we selfishly pursuing our personal allotment from the millions of dollars.

Sadly, far too many of the self-appointed test our collective credibility by doing the latter rather than being the former. Give me a dollar for every individual that criticizes our school district while also attempting to get a contract from it - I just might be able to solve our budget deficit.

In the Minneapolis Public Schools we have a 65% rate of poverty and 70% of our kids are of color. These are truly the faces at the bottom of the well. The social, emotional, and spiritual condition of these kids alarms me and motivates me to spend many hours away from my own family to work on their behalf. They are not statistics or bar graphs to be studied. They are not cash cows. They are God's children and what we do to them - or neglect to do for them - we do to God.

Though these children are thought of as being defective in some mortal way, which allows us to put our rescuers zeal in check, they are not genetically or morally unworthy. They are born tabula rasa and conditioned from there to be what we make them. It is possible for us to make them the next Obama or the next candidate for inmate status at Stillwater prison. As a society we should collectively care for these children, but within our own African American community we can't expect anyone else to do a better job of caring than we do. Either we show up or we should shut up. Period.

In order for us to truly earn the title of "leader" we must first seek to be responsible for something and accountable to someone. The absence of responsibility and accountability in our community is the new crack and its effects will be twice as deadly.

The systems we often assail - of education, social services, and law - need our co-creational participation, not our gift of perpetual protest. The life of our children depends on what form of leadership we aspire to. Transactional leadership will maintain the status quo, but transformational leadership will change the context in which we all live.

I'm known to provide a consistent critique for the institutions that serve us most, but I do so as a player at the table with very little to gain personally. I also do so knowing and seeing others before and around me that are giving so much more.

They pour themselves into their jobs in schools, nonprofits, foundations, community organizations, and businesses.

They make little noise as they make small gains in the lives of others.

They are motivated by the justice and not by profit. They seek to improve rather than destroy.

They contribute rather than detract.

They are the real "leaders" even if you don't know their names.

They are the people they've been waiting for.

They might fulfill the Obama promise, if only we use the optimism as fuel to turn away from the transactional types and invest our credibility in the transformers.