Darnisa Amante, founder and CEO of the Disruptive Equity Education Project, preaches the value of "uncomfortable" conversations in tearing down barriers of institutional racism.

My “Story in the Public Square” co-host Jim Ludes scripts and delivers the introductions to all our shows, and this is how he opened this week’s episode with Darnisa Amante, founder and CEO of the Disruptive Equity Education Project, or DEEP, based in Manchester, New Hampshire:

“Schools across America face an increasingly diverse student population, while deep-seated institutional biases endure. Today's guest argues that successful leaders, who dig deep and unpack their own experiences with race and bias, can help tear down the barriers of institutional racism.”

It was a spot-on intro to Amante, who for the next half hour went deeply into some of the most pressing issues of contemporary America — issues Amante addresses passionately as an African-American woman with a gift for persuasive speaking.

"When you don't talk about race, you can't talk about the racism that I have experienced on a daily basis," Amante said. "And so, racial equity is understanding that the darker you get in this country, the more disproportionate your experiences of inequity are.”

“You say the darker, meaning the color of your skin?” I asked.

As one of the writers for the 2015 Journal series “Race in Rhode Island,” I had been immersed in race issues, but this was not something we had considered. Such consciousness-raising, of course, is why we need thinkers like Amante.

So, yes, “the color of your skin,” she said. “Skin color actually really does matter in this country.”

Amante, who holds an educational leadership doctoral degree from Harvard, brings her workshops to teachers, schools and community organizations. She does not sugarcoat: her goal is change, not concurrence.

“Equity is one of those words that triggers people because as soon as they hear it, they say, ‘Are you going to tell me I'm not woke enough? I'm not conscious enough? Am I going to be blamed for what I don't know [and] didn't know I had to know? And I don't want anybody to think I'm not a good person,’” Amante said.

This can be “uncomfortable work, but it's not intentionally trying to make people feel terrible about themselves,” she said. “It's a call to action, it's a reckoning that in order for us to be the type of society we say we are, we have to listen to the perspectives of those we both agree with and don't agree with. That you really have to understand, through storytelling, how people are living in this country — because education right now is not teaching that.”

Amante is teaching that. Consider:

“Did you know that you can still be racially profiled in this country? You can still be told that you're not intelligent because of the color of your skin? You can still have people assume you're a thug, or whatever it may be, just because of how you're dressed? There are real perspectives on both sides of that story, and education's not normally the place where we share stories like that. And to me, all of that was the disruption: that storytelling and conversations are the work. ...

“Disruption for me is equity, is a process. It's a process of learning how to talk to people, it's a process of learning how to agree to disagree again, it's a process of expanding heart and mind and soul, and being empathetic. And it's the process of a collective commitment to dismantle policies and practices that will continue to oppress even long after we're gone if they're not brought down.”

Much-needed wisdom and encouragement, sprinkled with humor — this is what Amante brings to our program this weekend.

“Story in the Public Square” airs on Rhode Island PBS in Rhode Island and southern Massachusetts on Sundays at 11 a.m. and is rebroadcast Thursdays at 7:30 p.m.; the coast-to-coast broadcast schedule is at http://bit.ly/2ShlY5E An audio version airs Saturdays at 8:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m., Sundays at 4:30 a.m. and 11:30 p.m. on SiriusXM’s P.O.T.U.S. (Politics of the United States), Channel 124.