East Lyme — In the wake of George Floyd's death, "SCORE," a group of former athletes from East Lyme High, eschewed the deflated dumb jock paradigm and earnestly challenged the school system to seek changes related to the district's curriculum, diversity training for teachers, a review of a recruitment plan for hiring teachers of color and a Diversity Committee consisting of staff, students and parents.

The school system responded by commissioning an independent study of the racial climate in East Lyme Public Schools, 70 pages of root cause equity analysis from the Equity Institute, a Providence-based consulting firm that specializes in racial justice issues. The Equity Institute characterized East Lyme schools as "strong and academically oriented, with a focus on test scores and strict adherence to the curriculum that can sometimes get in the way of change."

Get in the way of change?

Au contaire.

How about mostly denying change is needed at all?

East Lyme's response to SCORE's aforementioned challenges mirrors the old movie gag used by police officers who are trying to keep people away from something interesting: Move it along people, move it along, nothing to see here.

Of the survey's 2,300 respondents (58.4 percent of which were white) — including students, family members, staff members, administrators and school board members — merely 25 percent concluded the school system needed change in the areas of diversity, equity and inclusion.

The most damning — or perhaps definitive — findings came from page 49 of the study. Under the category of "Desired District Investment Priorities," nearly as many voted for sports (365) as for Culturally Responsive Teaching (436).

That's borderline comical.

And it belies what Karla Vigil, CEO of the Equity Institute, told The Day's Elizabeth Regan: "At least 25 percent of your community members have shown that they're ready to move in that direction," Vigil said. "They might not completely understand what equity is or looks like or feels like, but their perceptions are that they'd like to move forward with this work."

The report described 25 percent as a "tipping point," based on the work of a social scientist, who said at least one-quarter of a community's population needs to buy into the concept of social change if it's going to take hold.

Sorry. I didn't go to school just to eat lunch. If 75 percent of the people don't think there's a problem, there's not a problem. Minimum buy-in means meaningful discussion and work toward solving critical issues will get cursory effort, if that.

Is there a problem? Of course there is. Not long after Regan reported the Equity Institute's findings, she broke a story about racist social media posts from past years resurrected by East Lyme High School students.

Ah, but 75 percent of the 2,300 people surveyed say there's nothing to see here.

I'd tell you if I thought the 2,300 people surveyed didn't reflect the sentiments of the town's 18,645 residents. I'll leave it here: "strong and academically oriented, with a focus on test scores and strict adherence to the curriculum that can sometimes get in the way of change" is just the way they like it.

It's called The Blissful Bubble: "Today, we the residents of the People's Republic of East Lyme, choose not to acknowledge what's happening around us because it's too hard." And there it is: The ability to opt out of suffering and injustice or pretend that everything is OK is the core of privilege.

Period.

And if you fail to acknowledge that, you don't get it and you never will.

Some of you may read this and conclude that East Lyme harbors a bunch of racists. I'm not going there. Instead, I believe East Lyme's population would rather choose the comfort and complacency of the bubble than summon the intellectual curiosity necessary to learn more about people who don't look like they do.

East Lyme is hardly alone, but a very real and frightening example of this country's pulse.

I asked East Lyme graduate Ben Ostrowski, a member of SCORE, for his thoughts. Ostrowski was an organizer for the Black Lives Matter march through Niantic in 2020.

"The report put in writing many of the same sentiments we heard at the Niantic protest in support of Black Lives Matter," he said. "That protest gathered a large turnout, but the crowd of people not in attendance was larger. So it's not surprising to read in the report that the portion of East Lymers who have demonstrated through their responses that they're ready to commit to transformative change is only around 25 percent.

"But 25 percent will grow. We are confident that the people of East Lyme are open to considering new information and perspectives and willing to change their cognition and behavior for the betterment of society.

"SCORE's work continues to chug along, making incremental change here and there through helping create diversity committees or facilitating the implementation of more inclusive school materials or granting scholarships to high school students of color. The thing about social change is that a tiny bit of it is flashy and fiery, but most of it is slow and steady. SCORE has been going steady, and that's what we'll keep doing, with one of our goals being to bump up that 25 percent."

I envy Ostrowski's optimism. I agree that change is incremental. I admire the school system's willingness to employ the Equity Institute's services.

It's just that I can't think of a better example of privilege than getting away with benignly neglecting what's directly in front of you.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro