Making It. Stephanie Malia Krauss

PREFACE

      All authors want to write an evergreen book, and I am no exception. In Making It, I wanted to present enduring ideas with as much relevance for today's kids as tomorrow's. And writing wrapped up just as COVID-19 pummeled the planet into the worst public health and economic crises we have seen in our lifetimes; my final edits were made soon after the high-profile anti-Black murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery—along with innumerable other acts of racial profiling and violence. These led to unrest and uprisings as well as a growing number of acknowledgments of racism by many in the white community. Many made a first-time commitment to work toward being antiracist.

      The year 2020 magnifies what happens when a centuries-old pandemic—America's brand of racism and anti-Blackness—collides with an altogether new pandemic, COVID-19.

      As I write this, we are in the midst of pandemic schooling, and no public health official, politician, pediatrician, or principal really knows what will happen. COVID-19 cases continue to rise, prompting fear from many and denial from others. As a mother of school-aged children, I am forced to accept that this is the world and time my children will grow up in.

In the following pages, you'll find stories of what it takes and the struggles that many children face as they try to make it in America. And in that struggle, I cannot help but see my own privilege and my children's good fortune. I am able to make choices for them right now that are only possible because of our whiteness and wealth. I can choose to have them learning at home with digital supports at our fingertips. I can take them on trips, wherever and whenever we want, without fear, because we are white. Yet, I wrestle with the choices I am making and how they might contribute to worsening segregation and the deep racial and class divides that exist in our nation.

      This book reflects these tensions, because it tackles what any young person in America needs to make it into and through adulthood. I wrote it because I have heard from young people, educators, and parents who want a better roadmap to navigate the world as it is, in a country that is still unfair and unjust—a country with an origin story of European settlers taking land that belonged to others, and declaring it their own.

      To really be about the business of helping young people make it in the world, we must operate on two planes: the one we are living in and the one we are building. We must help young people get what they need to survive in a place that does not live up to its promise of equal opportunity for all. This requires—among other things—a genuine commitment to antiracism, which takes constant reflection and action, and a willingness to be wrong and make it right. It also requires that those of us who are white take a posture of listening and learning, something I continue to try to get better at.

      Today's kids need adults who will stand up and call out bigotry and oppressive action toward young people of color, those who are disabled, the LGBTQIA community, and other marginalized groups. We must seek to understand who is hardest hit and most held back, figuring out what more they need to make it. But doing this alone is not sufficient. We must also work with those young people to co-create new rules of living and being, rooted in equity and justice. These young people are already taking the lead, and they need adults to help them carry out their visions for the future. This is individual and collective work, and it is at once introspective, expressive, and constructive.

      In this year of immense loss and struggle, I think about our children and about how this reality is all they know. While there is so much we don't have control over, there is so much we do. We can find beauty in the brokenness, because there is still hope and space to reimagine.

If we get this right, then maybe one day our children can write the book Made It—a history book about how they had what they needed—not just to get by, but to build a better tomorrow.

      Stephanie Malia Krauss

      November 2020