14: Willful Ignorance and the Precedent of Unprecedented

The use of the word “unprecedented” became one of the most frequent and hated words I encountered from 2020–2021 and still activates reserved resentment today. Resentment for the blindness of ignorance that allowed many to think the COVID-19 virus and its impacts was the first global illness that resulted in a massive death toll and rapid global pivoting. I asked myself frequently, are I and those that look like me really that unseen? How can someone say COVID-19 is an unprecedented event, has no one heard of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, Apartheid, the 1980s and 1990s, when crack was being seemingly airdropped into the communities and bodies of the Black and brown, the emergence of HIV, and colonialism? As a contemplative Black-bodied, gay, and divergent education scholar-practitioner, I am unwilling to deny the history that created me to contort and comfort those with willful ignorance. Yet, at times I found myself doing so to lead two different districts with the same willful ignorance that was used to erode and distract from a system that perpetuates unaccountable accountability systems (Worline & Dutton, 2017).