Guinea Pig Mitzvah

It's hard to be sure when you're doing the right thing most of the time, especially when you teach. You know, the moments when you are pretty sure you're doing the best thing for the child, and the child is screaming "This stupid class is ruining my life!"? Those moments. But I feel fairly sure that by the guinea pig I did a mitzvah, and that's a good feeling.

The guinea pig entered my life yesterday at about four o'clock, when I wandered into a conversation between Mrs. Trumbeldor and Mr. DiMarco, the dean of discipline. Here is what had happened:

Mr. DiMarco's father-in-law, under the influence of what, we are not sure, decided that it would be a cool idea to get guinea pigs for all of his grandchildren. He has three children who have so far produced offspring, so he bought three guinea pigs, and began to deliver them. I don't know what kind of reception he got at the other homes, but when Mr. DiMarco was shown the guinea pig he was firm (if incorrect). "That's a rat," he said. "We do not have rats in my home."

I should mention that Mr. DiMarco is a bit of a clean freak. You know those little Zen fountains you can get for your office? His runs a 25% bleach solution. His office is jammed with potpourri, essential oils, Febreze, you name it. Not a rodent man. He refused to keep the guinea pig. "Why doesn't it stay at your house?" he asked his father-in-law. "That way the children can play with it when they come over."

"Hell no," said his father-in-law. When I entered the picture, the guinea pig was in the garage at Mr. DiMarco's home, since it was not permitted in the people areas, and he was insisting that he would turn it loose in the hills behind his house.

Mrs. Trumbeldor and I put a stop to that right quick. "Bring it into the school," we said. "We'll find a home for it." Mrs. Trumbeldor had already talked to Perl, who might be willing to take the guinea pig home. I promised that I and the Fella would take the pig for some time if needed. We threatened him with the SPCA if he didn't bring the pig out of the garage and let it stay in the warm house overnight.

Today the guinea pig and its cage and accessories were brought to Mrs. Trumbeldor's office. Cute little guy, all black with orange streaks, which we thought might appeal to Perl, whose hair is approximately the same colors. But she wasn't sure about keeping it, and the day wore on (and the guinea pig spent about an hour sitting in the lap of our biology teacher, being groomed and petted), and I decided to take matters into my own hands.

"Does anyone want a guinea pig?" I asked in the locker room, as the freshmen girls swarmed around me. "Go see Mrs. Trumbeldor if you might want to adopt a guinea pig."

By four o'clock, the guinea pig was on its way off-campus, in the capable hands of Mushkie.

I learned later that Mr. DiMarco, concerned about the state of the guinea pig's cage had taken it apart, cleaned it with bleach, then lemon juice, put the pig back inside, then burned the gloves and shirt he wore for this operation.'

I hope the pig will be happy at Mushkie's. I certainly think it had a narrow escape when it comes to Mr. DiMarco.

Today, my students learned the word 'dexterity'

Lights Out

So, yesterday the lights at St. Dymphna's abruptly went out for about two hours, due to amazing stormy weather.

I had an 80-minute study hall during that time, during which I fielded complaints from disappointed teenagers who had assumed that the power going out meant they could take the day off. (The Balabusta was also a little disappointed.)

"How can they make us stay here?"

"The heaters are off!"

"Why can't we just go home?"

"Can I call my mom and ask if I can go home?"

"What about lunch?"

"I won't be able to heat up my food!"

"Do you realize that no one who didn't bring lunch is going to get to eat?"

(After the principal assured us that the cafeteria kitchen runs on gas, and hot lunch would be available...)

"Oh, so we have to eat that food that's been rotting in the refrigerator, huh?"

After the complaints died down, there was a period of quiet, and then Yaakov turned to me. "What if the building catches fire?"

I blinked. "We would evacuate the building according to plan."

"And go where?"

"Outside. To the parking lot. Like the plan says."

"In the RAIN?"

Now, it's coming down pretty good at this point. "Yes, in the rain."

"That's stupid!"

"What would you suggest, Yonkie?"

"I'm not leaving the building if it's RAINING."

"OK, Yonkie. You're sixteen, you can choose to stay here and die of smoke inhalation if you so choose. I will be exiting the building and taking your more sensible classmates with me."

"We should go home."

I love teenagers.

The Dark is Rising

Last night, I finally got around to seeing The Seeker, a film adaptation of Susan Cooper's young adult fantasy novel, The Dark is Rising. I am a longtime Cooper fan, and highly recommend the books. The Dark is Rising is part of a series that also includes Over Sea and Under Stone, Greenwitch, The Grey King and Silver on the Tree, based on British folklore and Arthurian legends.

The Seeker is not bad at all. I was worried when I learned the protagonist was now American rather than English, but the movie itself is set in England, and I think the change was made simply to accomodate the star's own accent. I enjoyed it a lot, and can see why it was made now. I imagine that this might be an appealing storyline for Harry Potter fans, and hopefully it got some of them interested in the books.

Some Pros:

1. It looks beautiful. The English countryside is used to good effect. The film is visually very lovely.

2. Since much of the plot revolves around Will, the Seeker, being the seventh son of a seventh son, he has a large and rather interesting family.

3. The Old Ones, the semi-immortal Druidic order Will was born into, are hilarious as a series of odd older English village folk.

4. In the original series, Will's powers manifest when he turns eleven, in the movie this has been rolled forward to fourteen. I think this make the character's behavior and abilities seem far more realistic.

A few quibbles:

1. OK, OK, I get it. He's going through puberty. The telekinetically dancing butter knife between two salt shakers was still a bit over the top, symbolically speaking.

2. The addition of a seductive older girl who's in league with the Dark Rider adds nothing (except to point out the puberty bit), and is so cliched it makes your teeth hurt. It should be illegal for a sinister fantasy bad guy to have a minion with no back story who he addresses contemptuously as 'Witch!'. It should also be illegal for the temptation he offers this minion to be eternal youth--and of course, when she fails to seduce Will, and take the movie's magical McGuffin from him, she is immediately punished by becoming old, and claw-y and un-hot. There is no excuse for this nonsense.

3. The addition of a complex back-story about the mysterious disappearance of a twin brother adds nothing. In the book, the child simply died young, which complicates the plot much less, and adds a touch of real tragedy.

4. Similarly, after one of the Old Ones has apparently died, to his friend's obvious deep sorrow, and their leader solemnly tells Will 'our enemy is merciless', he just sort of pops up again after the final battle. Great. The stakes are so incredibly high, that...no one can actually die fighting for them? Undercuts a good plot point.

Other than that, very good, and extremely creepy in a feel-good, happily ever after way.

Back To School

Back to school, with a new class (taken on from a teacher who is now on maternity leave), and great plans.

Yesterday, we had a staff retreat, and I heard the story of how the Salesian Order first arrived in the United States. (St. Dymphna is a Salesian school). Unlike most religious orders, the Salesians didn't start in the East, their first project in the U.S. was San Francisco's North Beach, where they founded SS Peter and Paul church.

First, of course, they had to get there. Apparently, sometime in the 1890s, a young Italian immigrant wrote to the Salesian order, asking if Salesians would come to America and begin schools here. He received a letter back from the head of the order, letting him know that five Salesians would be arriving in New York shortly--and that he was in charge of getting them to San Francisco. When they arrived, the young man bought train tickets and accompanied the Salesians west, eventually becoming a brother in the order.

Sounds like a Catholic version of "The Frisco Kid", doesn't it?

Fun and Games With Hamasniks

On Sunday, having thoroughly rested up, I headed to Union Square, to be a counterprotester against the pro-Hamas demo happening there.

Specifically, it was supposed to be candelight memorial service, to mourn those killed during Operation Cast Lead, and you sort of feel bad counterprotesting a memorial service. Until you show up, and notice the vile anti-Semitic signage, and the chants of "From the river to the sea", and QUIT standing happily out with their banner, and the paper-mache puppets, and you realize that this isn't a memorial service, this is another dang Hamas rally.

The opposition had the steps leading into Union Square, corner closest to the Powell Street BART, so we lined up on the opposite side of the street, streaming past Max Azria, Victoria's Secret, and the Westin St. Francis, which happened that day to be flying the flag of Saudi Arabia, just to make everything completely deranged.

A fairly low-key evening, really. Cold. Me clutching a sign with a message about gay Palestinians in one hand, and one with the faces of children killed in Sderot in the other, singing "Oseh Shalom" and stamping my feet. Assorted Japanese tourists took pictures--I suspect that we have ended up in many a photo album, as an example of real American protestors. We wound up around six o'clock.

One thing I have not entirely worked out is how to deal with the people who drive by in the stalled traffic in SUVs, waving Palestinian flags and screaming at you, when they roll down the back windows and encourage their small ones to do likewise. I am torn, between stony-faced "Am Yisrael Chai!" yelling, and smiling and waving at the children. Hard to do both, especially when both hands are full.

Meanwhile, Code Pink is still stalled in Cairo, although apparently a group of them are to be let through.

Overcoming Speechlessness

I notice that Alice Walker has reposted to her blog an essay entitled "Overcoming Speechlessness: a Poet Encounters "the horror" in Rwanda, Eastern Congo, and Palestine/Israel". I had thought to write something about this essay when I first read it, but I put it aside. Other matters were pressing, and, well, I didn't know where to begin. But now it's back, and rather than grinding my teeth, I'm overcoming my own speechlessness and saying something, hardly everything there is to say, about it.

Beginning:

It's hard to know how to begin to tackle this enormous, sprawling, hateful and clueless essay. Maybe at the top, where there is a picture of Walker posing with "Hamas Sister, Huda Naim, Member of Parliament, and Mother of five children". Maybe just a piece at a time, picking out a piece or two that got my Irish up.

Walker begins the essay with an account of meetings and travels in Africa. She begins with the stories of women in Rwanda and Congo who have survived things that make you want to scream to think of them. And then, she brings us to her understanding of Israel:

Like most people on the planet, I have been aware of the Palestinian-Israel conflict almost my whole life. I was four years old in 1948 when, after being
subjected to unspeakable cruelty by the Germans, after a "holocaust" so many future disasters would resemble, thousands of European Jews were resettled in Palestine. They settled in a land that belonged to people already living there, which did not seem to bother the British who, as in India, had occupied Palestine and then, on leaving it, helped put in place a partitioning of the land they thought would work fine for the people, strangers, Palestinians and European Jews, now forced to live together.

Does the willful ignorance take away your breath yet? The "holocaust" in quotes, which doesn't reflect past treatment of Jews but 'future' disasters, the European Jews who passively "were settled" there? The ignorance of the history of Zionism, of the thriving communities of Jews already living in the land, working and living on land they owned? The communities of Jews living in what is now Israel, since Ottoman times or before? The people who came during the ninteenth century, and the first half of the twentieth, to build a country? The non-European Jews who came after the war--oh, Alice, tell me why you think they came from countries they had lived in since the Babylonian Empire was a going political power, lands like Iraq and Egypt? That's not to even bring up the Jewish people's connection to and presence on this land going back to the Bronze Age, which I'm sure Alice doesn't take into account at all.

So this woman knows nothing, nothing at all, about Israeli history, and yet she is going to write an essay about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. From the heart, one supposes.

So many Jews.

Alice wants you to know about all the Jews, seeking justice, who went to Gaza with her. This includes:

A woman in her late fifties or early sixties stood at the front of the bus, as we passed donkey carts and Mercedes Benzes, and spoke of traveling to Palestine without her husband, a Jewish man who was born in Palestine. Several times they had come back to Palestine, renamed Israel, to see family. To attend graduations, weddings, and funerals. Each time they were held for hours at the airport as her husband was stripped, searched, interrogated, and threatened when he spoke up for himself. In short, because his passport was stamped with the place of his birth, Palestine, he was treated like a Palestinian. This Jewish husband sent his best wishes, but he could no longer endure travel in so painful a part of the world.

A Jewish man who was born in Palestine? How could that be, Alice? I thought they were resettled after the war by the Brits. Oh, never mind. I am supposed to believe that Israeli customs officials have never seen a passport issued to someone born in British Palestine before, and treat him like an enemy, because he is 'Palestinian'? Alice, sorry, but this is BS. Your ignorance of the country you see as the stronghold of racism and discrimination is leading you to swallow bubbemeisehs.

Let me tell you another story, and ask why you think this man's wife was not on the bus with you. The grandfather of a woman I know used to go every year, by train, to British Palestine, to pray at the Tomb of the Patriarch. It's a long train ride from Baghdad to Hebron, but he went every year, and then he prayed, not at the Tomb itself, because Jews were not allowed inside, but from the outside, as close as he was permitted to the shrine itself. His children and grandchildren now live in Israel and the United States, because within a decade of the founding of the State of Israel, Iraq was no longer a safe place to live as a Jew. Alice, did your guides introduce you to anyone who could tell you a story like this? Why do you think this man's wife, or his daughter, were not on your bus to tell their stories?

Rubble.

And she describes Gaza, and she asks: If children are not safe playing in their schoolyards, where are they safe?

And I think of pictures of children dead in Sderot, and I wonder at this woman's inability to see more than one snapshot of a conflict.

May God Protect You From The Jews

Alice encounters an old woman in Gaza:

I gave her a gift I had brought, and she thanked me. Looking into my eyes she said: May God protect you from the Jews. When the young Palestinian interpreter told me what she’d said, I responded: It’s too late, I already married one.

What a moment of solidarity, between the Palestinian woman and the leftist American novelist. A racial slur. Beautiful. But of course, Alice has a reason:

I said this partly because, like so many Jews in America, my former husband could not tolerate criticism of Israel’s behavior toward the Palestinians. Our very different positions on what is happening now in Palestine/Israel and what has been happening for over fifty years, has been perhaps our most severe disagreement. It is a subject we have never been able to rationally discuss. He does not see the racist treatment of Palestinians as the same racist treatment of blacks and some Jews that he fought against so nobly in Mississippi.

I wonder, Alice, if that might be because you've never bothered to learn the true history and the more complicated stories, and when you hear that from him, you turn off your ears and close your heart. But, no, clearly the ethnic slurs are justified.

I'm being mocking here because I don't know how else to respond. The sheer, stupid, self-justifying ugliness in this passage stopped my heart for a moment.

It's the pretension of awareness that gets to me. The self-anointing as struggler in a cause seen out of context, seen with no historical understanding, or knowledge of the broader world. The photographs with the Hamas 'Sister', with no understanding of what Hamas is, what they have done, who they are. The justifications for everything. The unwavering willingness to be the latest poor dumb American to come along and not look for any hidden truth or moral ambiguities.

May I never have to overcome speechlessness when it comes to lies and ignorance like this.

The War Against The War On Christmas Reaches New Depths of Barely-Contained Anti-Semitism

In a cryptic rant on Salon, apparently mostly about how Unitarian Universalists shouldn't mess with "Silent Night", Garrison Keillor writes:

This is spiritual piracy and cultural elitism and we Christians have stood for
it long enough. And all those lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys that trash up
the malls every year, Rudolph and the chestnuts and the rest of that dreck. Did
one of our guys write "Grab your loafers, come along if you wanna, and we'll
blow that shofar for Rosh Hashanah"? No, we didn't.

And so the gloves come off. Mr. Keillor, I'm really, really sorry that you're feeling so victimized at this time of year, but since your private religious holiday takes over Western Civilization for approximately six to eight weeks on an annual basis, please forgive me and Irving Berlin and Mel Torme for failing to give you enough cultural distance to feel that your holiday remains free of Jewish trash and dreck.

Mysteriously, after years of War-On-Christmas nuts moaning about the trauma of having to hear "Happy Holidays" in the stores, the second comment on this screed reads:

Give 'em hell, Garrison! And don't forget: Don't say Merry Christmas...unless you really mean it.

Merry Christmas, Mr. Keillor. And I really mean that...in the same way Ann Coulter does.

On Vacation

Well, sort of.

I have a stack of finals to grade, and a stack of essays to grade, but other than that, I'm on vacation!

China Rain

I don't know why I remembered this stuff today. Back in high school and college, I always had a couple/half dozen of the little bottles of perfume oil from Body Time in Berkeley rattling around on my bureau. I liked the Tea Rose, and the Amber, and I wore Lilac for a time in college, and I always had a little vial of the China Rain scent. It was soft, very clean and pretty, the smell of hippie-lite teenagers from the Bay Area.

I went looking for it online again today. Maybe I'll get another little bottle. Suddenly I missed the little bottles, and the scent of China Rain.

In Which Nofrat Gets Arrested

This is Nofrat Frankel. Nofrat is 25, and she is a medical student. She was arrested, November 18, for the henious crime of wearing a tallis at the Western Wall. Sources say that in addition to this crime, she may also have been praying.

She was arrested, detained by Jerusalem police for two hours, and ordered to stay away from the Kotel for fifteen days.

A Jew. In Jerusalem. Was arrested by Israeli police for wearing a tallis, and ordered to stay away from the Wall. No, this is not science fiction.

Nofrat may face charges of 'performing a religious act that offends others'. That may carry a penalty of six months in jail and a $2,000 fine.

Reuters states that Nofrat was "wearing a prayer shawl, which Orthodox Jewish tradition dictates is only for men." This is not true. 'Orthodox Jewish tradition' does not forbid women to wear tallitot. In additional, "Frankel was also holding a Torah, a Jewish biblical scroll, in contravention of Orthodox Jewish tradition." Did you realize it was assur for a woman to hold a Torah scroll? Apparently Reuters does. Hmm. I wonder who told THEM?

Apparently, the management at the Wall are digging their heels in, going once again after women following Jewish customs considered to be invalid by Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, the man in charge there. He has announced that women praying together at the Wall are a 'desecration' of the site.

Meanwhile, Nofrat asks the question on my mind. "If I cannot wear a religious garment at the Western Wall, where can I?" she asks.

Good question, Nofrat. I think the answer is meant to be pretty clear.

Oceans of Lotions

I seem to be giving the impression this month that my students are just a bunch of victim-blaming, narrow-minded, callous little begrudgers, and this isn't the case at all, of course. To present a lighter side of them, let me tell you about my locker-room gig.

Last year, St. Dymphna, in the rush to balance the budget, let go the only female gym teacher. Part of the reason I was called back is that they realized in the fall that they were going to have to answer the first question everyone else asked--'who's going to supervise the girls' locker room'?

Three blocks a day, that would be me. My role, such as it is, is to be there at the beginning and end of the block, and supervise as the girls change into and out of their gym gear.

This would be simple, except that:

1. They often forget stuff, and run around screaming things like "Does anyone have an extra pair of shoes?"

2. They have to remove all their jewelry to play, and this sometimes takes a while.

3. Some of them are more modest than others, necessitating hiding in the bathroom stalls to do all this.

4. Some of them feel it necessary to reapply their eyeliner both before and after playing volleyball.

and 5. The lotion thing.

They get ashy, you see. Now, when I was the age of my students, ashiness was a specific African-American issue, and mostly limited to things like elbows anyway. But ashiness has gone big-time since then. Now it is racially universal, and everyone worries about being ashy. They worry about their arms, and their legs. They have to be completely moisturized at all times, or a flake of ash might show, and then they would die.

So they moisturize. They apply lotion before leaving the locker room, and when they come back. They borrow lotions from one another, and apply them with a liberal hand, while the air fills up with sweet fruity-floral odors. They run around screaming "Does anyone have lotion? I'm ASHY!" Someone always comes to such a classmate's aid. The ashiness of one is the ashiness of everyone.

Then, just in case they might not smell fruity-floral enough, they pull whole bottles of body spray or cologne out of their lockers, and spritz each other until the whole place smells like Bath and Bodyworks after a bad earthquake.

I don't complain. The male gym teacher gets to supervise the boys. I don't know if they care about ashiness, but they worry about smelling bad. So they use AXE.

I'm getting off easy.

Hard conversations

Yesterday, after school, hanging out in the freshmen religion teacher's office, one of the boys says: "I still don't understand why that girl isn't in trouble for under-age drinking."

This has been a recurrent question, asked at the assembly too. I don't fully understand why it preoccupies them so, but they seem troubled, seriously, by the idea that several young men are in custody for rape and battery, while an under-age drinker gets off scot-free.

"Try to look at it this way, Moish," I said. "Let's say you steal a book from Baruch's locker. That's wrong, it's against the rules, and you will get in trouble for it, right?"

"OK."

"But let's say that before we get a chance to punish you for stealing a book, Baruch comes after you with a baseball bat, beats you to within a inch of your life and puts you in the hospital. Believe it or not, we are going to be so concerned about the felony Baruch committed, that we may not even bother about punishing you for the book, especially since you're in the hospital, recovering. Got that?"

"I guess so."

"If that girl had been black, this wouldn't even be in the papers," says Baruch.

"I think maybe you guys are making too big a deal out of this," says Ahuva. "I mean, it's kind of a big deal. But this has been going on for weeks, and it's not THAT big a deal."

"Ahuva," I say, "I don't want to start reciting all the details of this crime, and trying to scare you. But the detective who's been working this case, every time he speaks to the press, says that this was horrifying, one of the worst things he's seen. This is a guy who's a detective for the Richmond PD. He's seen everything. If he says it's bad, I believe him."

Apparently, one of the girls simply refused to wear one of my turquoise ribbons to the assembly. She told her teacher that "that girl" shouldn't have been drinking with guys, and it wasn't her problem.

Cold world these children live in.

Turquoise Ribbons

Today, St. Dymphna had an assembly for the rape at Richmond High School, and about sexual assault and safety in general.

Turquoise is the awareness-ribbon color for sexual assault, at least that's what I was told over the loudspeaker earlier this week. Some sources now say teal--anyway, we believed it was turquoise, which is why the Balabusta went to Jo-Ann's yesterday and bought eight yards of turquoise acetate taffeta--they didn't have a cotton-poly blend in the right color--and today spent several hours slicing the stuff into ribbons to put on the students at the assembly. Note to self--acetate taffeta frays like a mother. Next time we have an assembly needing ribbons I will get a couple of rolls of ribbon.

Right before I rolled my class into the gym for the assembly, one of the girls asked what the ribbons were for, and I told them it was to show solidarity with the victim. One of my freshmen looked me right in the eye, and told me that what she heard was that "that girl" was seen walking around in Pinole, and didn't have a bruise on her.

"The police report tells a different story," I said, and left it there.

Those High-Rolling Lesbians

Reading David Gibson over at Politics Daily, the Balabusta comes across this theory on why Maine voted down same-sex marriage, from Anne Underwood of Catholics for Marriage Equality:

"Tourism is down, fishing is a disaster, and people who used to work in the mills in Maine don't have anything anymore," Underwood said. "When you are struggling to meet the basics, it is much more difficult to be persuaded to extend yourself into understanding justice for people who don't seem to be affected by the same economic ills that you are."

I have nothing against Anne Underwood, who seems to be a nice person, but this little snippet set my teeth on edge. Gay people in Maine who want to get married 'don't seem to be affected' by the same economic ills that struggling straight folks in Maine are? Is it really that profitable to be gay in Maine? Are there secret pockets of great lobstering that only lesbian coops know about? Let's get real. Gay Mainers are losing their jobs at the same rate as straight Mainers.

What I think Anne Underwood means is that struggling straight folks in Maine have been sold a bill of goods by the same out-of-state deep-pocketed religious groups that targeted California during the Prop 8 run-up. They've been told, among many other things, that gay people who want to get married are not their friends, their neighbors, their coworkers, they're an affluent, privileged 'other'. This is, of course, grade-A BS.

It's going to be another hard-candy Christmas in Maine as well as most of the rest of the country. Voting for the gay lobstermen in their lives to be able to marry would have been the cheapest and best early Christmas present ever. Too bad some of the electorate was convinced a bunch of rich folks with an agenda were on their side.

Here's how to do it right

Meanwhile, the Rev. Byron Williams, pastor of the Resurrection Community Church of Oakland,CA, gets it absolutely right.

He writes: The imagery conjures memories of the gruesome photos of whites gleefully posing in front of black lynched bodies. It is the sense of elation rooted in profound hatred that is beyond comprehension for most humans.

He writes: Some might suggest that had the victim not been drinking alcohol to excess, as it has been reported, none of this would have happened. Even if alcohol was consumed, since when does drinking too much justify taking someone's humanity?

And he finishes with a resounding defense of non-human kind: Someone referred to these perpetrators as animals. They are not animals. I'm confident the uncivilized acts committed at Richmond High are beneath any behavior exhibited by my dog Zeus.

Read the whole thing. This is a spectacular piece, angry, insightful and absolutely correct.

Preconceived Notions and Prepackaged Ideas

I came across this piece by Daisy Hernandez, while reading articles about the rape at Richmond High. I remember Hernandez's work from back when she was writing for Ms.--that was back when I could still read Ms.--and now she's apparentlythe managing editor of Colorlines Magazine. I have to say that as an analysis of the role of race in this horrific situation, this article completely sucks. It's full of assumptions, bizarre statements, and half-understandings. And it makes me angry.

Hernandez writes:

The gang rape of a 15-year-old at Richmond High School last weekend has shaken many of us. The details have made us shudder. We’ve refused to read the details of the assault or we’ve analyzed more than a dozen people watched and did nothing or we’ve quietly thanked women like Margarita Vargas and Atianna Gibbs who upon hearing about the rape say they called the police. More than two hours had already lapsed.

The rape has also raised the issue of race.

Not in Richmond. Online, among the unpaid commenting classes, yes, some hideously ugly racial stuff has come up, but not in Richmond, with only one exception that I can think of. And her nephew is a suspect, so she's not entirely accountable for what comes out of her mouth.

It’s hard to figure out what’s most disturbing about this video—Kami stumbling through tears and anger to make her points but ending on an enigmatic reference to Asian students or that a white student immediately jumps to the idea of checking the IDs of Latino men as the only way to feel safe or that CNN made no reference in its written report to Kami’s insistence that school security policies vary according to the skin color of students.

Here we suddenly diverge from reality. I've watched video several times, and Kami Baker makes no reference to the race of the men whose IDs she wants checked. What she accuses the school of is allowing twelve to fifteen men who couldn't prove they had any reason to be at a high school dance, to loiter outside without being challenged. That's an egregious failure of good security practice at any high school. But we do not know that those men were 'Latino'. We don't know, because Kami didn't mention it. Because it's not important. Regardless of their race, their IDs should have been checked. Hernandez seems to want it both ways here--to acknowledge Kami's accusation that systemic racism played a part in Richmond High's lousy security, but to imply that checking the IDs of men hanging around a high school dance would be racist.

Meanwhile, the school has received emails from across the nation comparing its students to animals, forcing young people of color in Richmond to defend themselves, their school and their community—precisely at a time when they are in terrible grief and shock.

“It’s stigmatizing an entire people,” say Nicholas James, director of special projects with Youth Together, an organization that develops student leaders at six sites in the Bay Area including Richmond High School. “Why can’t we see this for what it is—violence against women of color.”

Except that the victim is white, the accused perpetrators are white, black and Latino, and the school is multi-racial, so this basically means absolutely nothing, unless you're prepared to define the city of Richmond as a 'whole people'. Seriously, what does this mean?

As of Friday morning, cops had also arrested six people including teenage boys and young men. One of them is a young Black man, whose family insists he was only arrested because he is Black, prompting comments that the family is playing the race card and leaving the rest of us to wonder how much worse this is going to get before it’s over.

You know, it's pretty bad already.

This piece angers me. It's a cheap attempt by an outsider to fit prefabricated ideas about 'young people of color' over a real situation in which a young woman living in a tough neighborhood was horribly victimized because she was a woman.

Think first, write later.

Hernandez also includes this information which I cannot better:

* * *
Donations are being taken for the victim. Checks can be sent to:
Assault Victim Fund
Richmond High School
1250 23rd St.
Richmond, CA 94804

The checks should be made out to "Richmond High School Student Fund." On the memo line, write "Assault Victim Fund."

Vigil at Richmond High

Yesterday, some of the staff and students from St. Dymphna's walked over to Richmond High for a rally and candlelight vigil for the young woman who was raped and beaten on campus a week and a half ago.

The first thing I notice, of course, is that their students look just my students--young, cute, vulnerable, exasperating. Same neighborhoods, same clothes, except for our school khakis and polo shirts. They wear their hair the same way, and greet each other identically. No distance here. These are the people in our neighborhood.

Our little group was greeted, and given white cloth armbands by students and parents. We sat down on folding chairs in the late afternoon sun, and watched the rally. There were signs--"Harm 2 One Is Harm 2 All". "Never Blame The Victim". Hand-labeled, painted in bright colors.

The rally began with an Aztec ceremony conducted by one of the teachers. Speaking in English and Spanish, he explained that he would be honoring the directions--and added, as an aside, that he hoped the smudge smoke would not bother anyone, but that if you were offended, you should consider that it was less offensive than the pot smoke that had contaminated our neighborhoods for too long. As a young man blew a conch shell, he swung a smudging pot to the four directions, to the sky and the earth. Substitute a shofar, substitute a lulav--amazing how similar all these things are, stripped down to essentials.

He was followed by students who read poetry, the mayor of Richmond, the principal of the school, a coach who sang a gospel piece, and school board members. There was a dance performance. The St. Dymphna crew crept away at this point, but left behind our principal, and some students from the neighborhood who were there with their parents. The group stayed on until dark, and lit candles in the twilight.

It felt inadequate, all of it, and I think it's because of the language people are using. Everything was heavily couched in the same social justice language we in the Bay Area use for everything from solar panels to street crime, and it just fell flat, it felt stupid and inexpressive. "Sustainable social change", said one kid "speaking truth to power, demanding change" said the mayor. "Healing from violence," said everyone. The media were chided for presenting a negative image of the school. It wasn't until one of the school board members stood up that I heard a direct message to the students that they were responsible for opposing sexism, homophobia, violence. You stand up, he said, and you stand up even if you're the only one who stands up.

Thank you, Mr. Medrano. That was what I needed to hear. I could have also stood to hear "and you call the police when a crime is in progress".

It was nice to be there. It was even nicer to hear that there are now six young men charged in the case. I am so angry. I am even more worried about my students than I used to be. Bad times.

All Souls

We had a mass for All Souls at St. Dymphna's this morning. I love mass at St. Dymphna's. I wish we did it every week. It's spiritually intense to sit in our gym on the bleachers with almost six hundred teenagers, listening to the folk-rock-mass choir sing, and making the Mass come to life with kids in sneakers carrying up the gifts, and the collection going into big manila envelopes.

The kids from Campus Ministry made a bazillion little colored paper fish for people to write names of departed loved ones on, and with the fish, and some fishnet, they created some beautiful decorations. There was boat, with a mast and sail, and nets draped on the altar. Very kitschy. Very lovely.

A Long Bad Week

Last Saturday, St. Dymphna's had our homecoming dance.

The same night, Richmond High School, a mile and a half from St. Dymphna's, also had their homecoming dance. And there was a gang rape at theirs.

Some of you are probably already following this in the news. For those of you who aren't, it's easy enough to Google.

It's been a long, bad week.