What do we celebrate? (more)

I want to circle back on the “what do we celebrate?” question again because there is an unspoken side of this question that is not generally talked about.

What do we celebrate and the corollary of how do we celebrate becomes murky when we are celebrating events that, in a perfect world, should not NEED to be celebrated.

The most immediate example I have is the achievement of tenure by an African-American woman in a university department that had never before tenured an African-American woman.  Clearly achieving tenure by any member of the academy is worthy of celebration.  But even noting or differentiating someone’s tenure achievement because of race, ethnicity, gender, etc., begs the question of “what do we celebrate?”.

Are we celebrating a change in culture within that department, school or university (in this specific case)?  I hope so.   It seems rather awkward though to openly call that out to celebrate, because maybe there really wasn’t a change.  It might be the advent of a more open and inclusive environment with hopefully more to come.  Or it might not be.

So what do we celebrate?  And how do we celebrate in such a way that we are inclusive of even those who perhaps have prevented something as deep and profound as culture change from happening before?

Celebrating change – which most events signal – occurs at many different levels.  The hardest level, it seems to me, to figure out is what is being celebrated and how to celebrate it in a way that doesn’t reverberate an element of the old culture back on to a different segment of the community.  Celebrating in a way that provides grace, which by definition is undeserved favor or mercy.  The embodiment of Ghandi’s “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind“.  And yet still being able to celebrate.

I don’t know how to do this well.

I do know I’d like More, Please.