I was reading a document the other day and halfway down, in the margins, @DrAlethaMaybank had commented on a sentence about equity with something like "This feels like an afterthought. Start with equity and the rest will fall into place." Those words keep coming back to me.

First of all, let's be honest - most of us think of equity as an add on and it shows in our work. Equity shows up in the secondary analyses, in the "additional thoughts" and the "future work" sections.

What if we really embodied the idea of starting out from a foundation of equity and building from there? Are we willing to actually embody that radical proposition in our every day work?

The other take away for me is how important it is to be consistent and direct with your truth, whenever you can. You never know when a learner is reading some side thing you wrote in the margins and absorbing it.

I know I've passed thru dozens of documents where I thought, boy the equity piece is really low priority here, or not visible, or dismissed. And what if each time I'd written "Hey, this feels like an afterthought. Suggest starting with equity"...

Even if it didn't change anything, you never know who is going to be reading that document months or years later, who sees your comment and feels validated in their own critique. Or maybe it puts into words something they were feeling and hadn't articulated.

Just seeing that example gave me courage and inspired me to be more bold and consistent. Mentorship happens in so many different ways.