I Am Sorry

People say that I say “I am sorry” too often. That I say it for no reason as most of my apologies are about things that are not my fault…but this is the problem. Sometimes, there can be sorry-ness because you know that you should have done and can do better. Things in society are my fault – not 100% but I should work harder to change them.

I often pray using this mantra (which many Jesuit educated out there will recognize as St. Ignatius’ Prayer of Generosity):

Lord, teach me to be generous

To serve you as you deserve,

To give and not to count the cost,

To fight and not to heed the wounds,

To toil and not to seek for rest,

To labor and not to look for reward,

Save that of knowing that I do your will.

So, I am sorry.

Over the course of the next couple of months, we will post a variety of things on our blog that we think are interesting from an ecosystem change perspective. Fundamentally, this data is not about race but it is absolutely racial. We have no direct purpose behind this data because much of it is for the digestion of the many towards the efforts of the few. But, we will do our part – bring to life the system through data that so many struggle to see.

Much of it will be about my hometown, Omaha, because it is what I know best regarding these issues. Understand that Omaha is by no means an outlier – in either direction. Our nation’s problems are fully realized here in Omaha. Many of those problems are worse here than in other places – physical segregation for one.

These are things that we have been working on since Chapman and Company was formed, but we will be more transparent with our data and our belief that there are a number of challenges across the country that are systemic racism.

We see it every day in the data we examine – but today, we commit to being more open about explaining that view to others.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash