The Skillman Foundation

After all these years, I found out the other day that the color purple doesn’t actually exist. Go ahead, Google it. This is true. The reality is that within the ROYGBIV spectrum of the rainbow, there is no “P” for purple. This is because while the other colors each have their own unique wavelength, purple does not. The human eye doesn’t actually see purple. Instead, it creates it. Purple happens when the eye takes in opposite ends of the visual spectrum—blue and red. It then bends the blue and red into a circle to create purple.

There is so much extremism in the world right now. Extreme change to policies, to public systems, to the federal government, and to our perception of what it means to live in a democratic republic. What it means to be American.

We can disagree on what is the best way to educate children. On tax policy. On paths to prosperity for Michigan. On University of Michigan versus Michigan State (although at the end of the day…Go Blue, amiright?). Not only can we discuss and disagree, but healthy debate is also what’s needed to get us past one set of ideas into the best set of ideas. But the conundrum that seems the hardest to tackle is the mental models beneath the policy ideas.

Fundamentally, as Americans, do we believe that our collective good is tied to our individual gain?

If so, we will invest heartily in the collective good. We will ensure the youngest amongst us learns anything they need and desire—including how to get along, to express ideas, to question AI and media for veracity, challenge authority, and to take care of themselves and each other. We will lean heavily into reading, math, science, the arts, and history—not for test scores per se but so that the foundation of our society can use these tools and more to rewrite the future.

We will do this not as one family, or one neighborhood around the school our kids attend. As Americans, Midwesterners, Michiganders, we will care whether children in the northernmost parts of Michigan are faring well, just as we care for how those in the southeastern and western parts are faring.

We will fight for youth we’ve never met, not because they are ours specifically but because they are ours generally. We will believe in the concept of Sawubona, which means, “I see you; I see your worth and dignity.” Even from a distance. Even without ever knowing their name, we will know if their heart beats, then it creates a glorious symphony with our own.

If we only believe in our individual gain, then we will believe a policy is good only if it works for me as an individual. Does it work for me? Then let’s do it. Will it harm them? That’s fine, as long as I am ok. We can ignore cruelty, keep scrolling, tell ourselves that others get what they deserve. Will cruelty come to me or my group? If not, carry on. If so, then I will oppose it.

We are born on this Earth and told that blue and red are opposing ends, when in reality, they are part of a spectrum that blends together. America is not one or the other. Our precious project of democracy is not meant to end in the triumph of one perspective. We are meant to be a home for differences, to grapple with the tension of disparate thoughts and ideals, and from this, to form something better for all. It is a form of purple. It doesn’t just exist. We create it. And in the end, it is truly only the perception of what a society designed by our better angels could be. And then we create policies to bring it to life.

In Michigan, we are a proudly purple state. This means we must work every day to connect red and blue to create something magical and vastly better. This takes work and time and reaching, always reaching toward the “other.” At The Skillman Foundation, we are proud to reach, to stretch, and to challenge ourselves to grow more. Not just for us, but for all of us.

Circling toward the new,
Angelique