Personal Perspective: Morgan Williams

Chipmunks Teacher Morgan Williams shares her personal experience in light of the killing of George Floyd last May and the protests that followed. 

At weekly meetings we talked about COVID. We needed to talk about this, too.

When George Floyd was killed, it shocked everyone. I wasn’t completely shocked because I’ve seen this before. But this time, I feel it shocked a lot of people because everyone was home and you had to pay attention. 

The video was everywhere. And after it was over I heard statement after statement from all these different companies. I thought about where I worked. 

Most of the people at my job are Black. It is hard for us right now to not only deal with COVID, but everything that is happening. At weekly meetings we talked about COVID. We needed to talk about this, too.

A lot of us weren’t thinking about COVID. We were thinking about what it’s like to be out in the streets and fear for our lives or the lives of our loved ones.

I was grateful to talk to PIC’s Executive Director Deb Green and hear that she was working on a message to staff. Nobody knows what to say in 
those situations. I appreciated that she wanted to say the right thing.

Helping Deb with that made me feel powerful. I knew how much a statement would mean to teachers, to hear her acknowledgement. A lot of times these things happen and people don’t acknowledge it or they ignore it. When people are hurting we want to be acknowledged. 

When we had the next Zoom meeting for staff we took time to talk about our pain and work on healing together. I was reminded that I have this community of people that are with me during this really hard time.