How can you keep rising up time after time?

Today’s post is personal and in the moment. No leadership lessons today, simply sharing feelings of despair, yet also feeling wonder and awe in witnessing resilience.

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

The closing stanzas of “Still I Rise”, by Maya Angelou

On Sunday night, the 19-year-old black man above, Bukayo Saka, missed a penalty kick, the final moment as England lost the final of the Euros to Italy. Before him, the prior two penalty kicks were also missed, and they were also taken by young black men. After that last miss, another young black man, who was in the group I was watching the game with, called out, in an anguished tone: “why did they make black men take those three penalties!?”

For a moment I missed the depth of pain in that question. My white privilege overrode my understanding as I have never faced any additional challenges because of the colour of my skin. What he meant, including as an England fan wanting the win, was that…