I want to thank Amanda Blaine for her thoughtful article and the entire Racial Equity Committee for their work with the Vashon Island School District (“Addressing universal racial equity problem in schools requires engagement, honesty,” May 10).

Blaine states: “Leading with race helps us create equitable schools for all. … When we focus on institutional racism, all students benefit.” The classic argument regarding how to achieve a more equitable society is: “Start with classism and that will solve racism — it’s all about economics.” For me, a long-time feminist, institutional patriarchy is at the core of oppression. Given all the factors impacting children’s success, the idea of “leading with race” intrigued me.

According to The City of Seattle’s Office for Civil Rights’ Race and Social Justice Initiative (RSJI), there is good reason to lead with race when it comes to fighting all forms of oppression. America is unique in that we, as a nation, are founded on the attempted genocide of native peoples and the enslavement of Africans. Our national narrative is a story we constructed to rationalize a legacy of government-sponsored racial oppression and segregation.

According to research cited by RSJI, “race is consistently a primary indicator of a person’s success and wellness in society.”

Most of us would agree that ranking the different oppressions is not useful. Leading with race would seem to contradict that, but seen in the context of our history and the resulting institutional racism that exists to this day, I feel that leading with race is a useful strategy. It is not a belief that racism is worse than other forms of oppression. It is a way to bring diverse communities together, including white people, to organize and work together in the pursuit of equity.

— Jessica Lisovsky