Judy Sunde Hanawalt

Things I'm Thinking About

Tag: justice

The Berkeley High Walkout

September 21, 2016 / / 2 Comments

On November 5, 2015, students at my son’s high school, Berkeley High, walked out in protest of a hate crime. Read the article about it in Berkeleyside, with pictures and videos.

Today, a new article came out in the Daily Cal, Racial Achievement Gap in Berkeley Public Schools Persists. I left my blog post sitting in the draft box for a year, but the problem didn’t go away.

This is my experience that day and in the following week. 

The phone rang about 8 in the morning, but I missed it. I listened to the message a few minutes later; it was the Berkeley High principal calling to inform the school community about a hate-filled, racist threat left on a computer screen in the school library.

The news was already out in the school community, circulated by students who had heard about it somehow last night. Before my son left for school, he knew about a rally that was already being planned. By mid-morning, the Berkeley High students, along with some teachers and staff, were walking out of school, and the peaceful crowd of at least 700 moved in a large, chanting group up to Cal, rallied there joined by students from Cal and Berkeley City College, and then came back to BHS.

My son was texting me with updates.

“There is a walk out.”

“I’m at it.”

“Principal Pasarow is speaking”

“We’re on the move.”

I was out around town, hearing the helicopters, maneuvering around the crowds and police cars near Cal to meet a friend for lunch. After lunch, I watched the crowd of chanting students pass on their way back to the high school. I walked with them for a few blocks, moved and proud of their unity, kids standing up for their friends.

I came to BHS a little later for my volunteer shift at the desk in the front office. It was quiet, except for a few parents calling or coming by to ask what was going on. Some of the parents were upset, challenging the principal for letting the students walk out.

Should he have stood up against the protesters, stopped the rally, squelched the students’ uprising?  I’m glad he didn’t stand anywhere except with the students–anything else would have made him an opponent. Engaging with the world around them and speaking out against injustice is a virtue. Peaceful demonstration is not something to be punished.

A few days later, I was filling a friend in on the details at a coffee shop and an African-American woman sitting nearby overheard me. “Do you work at Berkeley High?” she asked me. I told her I’m a parent and a volunteer there. I expected her to agree with me that the walk out was great.

She didn’t.

She told me that if something should be protested, it’s not a prank on a school computer. Someone should be walking out over the systemic injustices that contribute to the appalling achievement gap between white kids and kids of color. She quoted some statistics that left me feeling both defensive and helpless.

“You have to start somewhere”, I told her. “I’m at the school trying to do something”, I told her.

I left with a heavy, hopeless feeling where there had been a smug sense of rightness before. The friend I was with comforted me, “You can’t change people’s minds sometimes.”

Thinking about it later, I realized that I don’t want to change that woman’s mind. I want to listen to her, even if what she says hurts, even if it feels like too much, especially if it shakes up ideas that I have let settle into a solid, useless mass.

The next day, I searched for reported test scores in my school district, looking at graphs comparing the achievement levels of students at our school broken down by race and income.

She’s right.

How can it be that less than 30 percent of minority students in our high school can do basic algebra? Why does the math program work for 80 percent of white kids? Why aren’t we teaching math to all the students? Statistics for reading and writing are no better.

I’m mystified, I’m upset, I’m uncomfortable. I’m angry. I’m forced to look outside my self and my own interests, beyond the success of my own children. I don’t  have the answers, but I’m finally hearing the problem. Our school does not work for everyone.

It’s not just about an isolated event, it’s not just about appreciating another culture, or about being a decent human being to other human beings. It’s not about working harder, acting better and taking the opportunities that come.

It goes deeper than that, to the very core of how our society works.

Still, I’m proud of the Berkeley High kids for speaking up, for not allowing one more incident go by unnoticed. They stood with their classmates. It is doing something; it is a start.

Stories We’re In

March 20, 2015 / / 1 Comment

“Love, no one cares about the stories they’re not in.” Matt Nathanson

Sometimes we enter a story, stumbling into it without realizing it will become a story we care about. There’s a choice at the beginning, but it leads to unexpected places. A door opens, we walk into a new place, and suddenly our story changes.

Our youngest boy was 12 and wanted to play football. We had put him off for a few years, not wanting him to get hurt, but decided to let him try it. There was a Pop Warner team in Berkeley, so we went to the open sign-up event without knowing much about the program. After we talked to one of the coaches and he addressed our fears about safety, we joined the team. It was one of those unmarked doors that leads to a place that undoes and remakes your heart.

Our son was one of two white boys on the team, the rest mostly African-American. We joined their families at practice, parent meetings and games. This is a football community focused on keeping their boys off the street and out of trouble, giving them good role models and providing the skills and exposure that might give them a shot at going to college with a sports scholarship. Our son was there to play for fun. He will have the opportunity to go to college without a sports scholarship. He isn’t in much danger of getting into a gang, or of encountering violence the same way many of his teammates are.

Out on the field, though, he became one of them, and in the stands we became part of the parents’ group. We came to the field from a different place, but once there, we were part of the football family. We loved it. We saw a genuine care for the kids, the community coming around the kids to protect them and lift them up. Joining them, we were invited into this caring: the anxiety of an uncertain future, the fear of losing a child to violence or jail, the pain of being ignored or treated with suspicion with no explanation except for racial bias and the fierce belief that they can make a better life. There is an openness, hope and positivity in the face of hardship in that community that is contagious.

I began to see my own white community from the other side. When our team from a more urban setting went to play the richer and less-diverse suburban teams, the way the players and parents looked at us and treated us seemed so obvious and ignorant. I’ve been on the other side.  I know the feeling– the unease and apprehension when the tough-looking team from the bad part of town shows up, the brave posturing to hide the fear. Seeing it from the other side, though, was hurtful. Now these were my kids.

I know their names and their families. I drive them to games, I cheer for them when they succeed and encourage them to keep going when they fail, just like their parents do for my son. Can’t the people from the other team see that our players are kids like their kids–the same age, the same size, the same goofy sense of humor, the same love of video games and junk food, the same insecurities about hair and acne and crushes, the same dreams for a future? No, because our kids are scary.

One time in particular, the racism was overt–the name-calling, the trash-talking, the accusations. Our kids and coaches were maligned, our parents not trusted to do the usual volunteer jobs, like moving the chains to measure first downs. There were threats of calling the police. Assumptions were made, stereotypes were believed, cultural differences were misconstrued.

My husband and I were shocked and confused and angry. We were scared for our kids. We were saddened that our boys now had one more reason to believe they wouldn’t be treated fairly. How could this possibly be happening? It was not right.

The other parents were angry, but not surprised. One of them said to us, “This is what happens when you let your son play with black kids.”

It was a holy moment. We had the privilege of being included in their community, of suffering what they suffer, of seeing in a new, profound way what we had heard about but could never really understand. Their story became my story, and I haven’t been able to forget it.

Two Very Different Men

January 22, 2015 / / 3 Comments

As I go about my daily business around town, I recognize people who are regulars, selling Street Spirit newspapers or asking for money or food. I often chat with them, buy a paper, sometimes bring them a cup of coffee or a roll from the bakery.

For a while, there was a sweet African-American woman who sat by the curb on an upturned bucket in front of my bank. I talked with her several times, hearing about her children and grandchildren. I knew her life had been difficult. She was positive and funny, though, keeping a good attitude despite the uncertainties, and trying to make a better life for her family.

One day several years ago, after dropping the kids off at school, I went to the bank on my way home. As I walked in, I greeted her and noticed a man, unshaven and wearing khakis and a wind-breaker, sitting in the open door of a car parked in the street behind where she was sitting. He was talking to her.

When I came out, he was still there. I overheard bits of what he was saying as I walked by. He kept up a steady stream of disparaging words, calling her names–lazy, worthless, stupid. I paused and listened, hoping it would stop. It didn’t, and impulsively, I turned around, walked back and said, “Why don’t you leave her alone?” I started to go to my car, but the man’s angry words continued to pour out. He turned them on me, calling me back.

I can’t remember exactly what he said–it was a barrage of violent, hateful, ugly insults and threats that came crashing down on me and my friend. I stood next to her, put my arm around her as if to shield her from the words, and spoke close to her ear. “Don’t listen to him. It’s not true.” She just nodded.

As the onslaught continued, I appealed to the security guard outside the bank for help. He refused, saying it wasn’t bank business. At some point, the man said he had a gun in his trunk. I took the threat seriously and went inside the bank for help. A bank employee called the police and handed me the phone.

When I went back out, the man had moved to the middle of the sidewalk, and the homeless woman was trying to get back to selling her papers. The man focused on me, attacking me in every conceivable way. I have never heard such words–the hate and ugliness that poured out of his mouth was astonishing and numbing. I could not leave, though. I was determined to keep this verbally abusive man there until the police arrived.

Another man, who had been sitting at the cafe next to the bank, got up and walked over to stand with me as I took the verbal blows. I was responding as little as possible, engaging just enough to keep the angry man from getting in his car and driving away. His breath smelled like coffee as he leaned in to hiss his arrogant, denigrating account of me and my life. My supporter said nothing to me or to my assailant. Simply standing next to me, listening to everything, seeing it all, he was my witness.

The man from the cafe is the one I remember the most and the least from the day. I can’t remember what he looked like, only that he was holding a clipboard. His presence, though, was like an anchor in a storm. This was really happening. I wasn’t crazy. I needed to stand and do this. Just by staying next to me he gave me strength. I can’t believe I withstood the encounter, looking back. I cry just thinking about it. Adrenaline and anger pulled me into the fray, but having someone stand with me kept me from losing my head or my courage.

Two Berkeley police officers finally arrived on bikes. One of them took the man a short distance away, hand-cuffed him and questioned him. The other policeman stayed with us, getting the story from each person separately. He asked me if the hand-cuffed man had ever touched me–or if he had only talked to me. No, he had not touched me, I told him, only hammered me with words and sprayed me with spit and rancor.

We have to let him go, the officer told me. Freedom of speech, no matter how offensive, is protected by law. The threat of a gun in the trunk was not true. There was officially nothing they could charge him with, not even illegal parking. I was shocked and disappointed. No one should be allowed to do that.

The police officer agreed and told me, as a fellow citizen, he appreciated that I had stepped in to stop the tirade. Most people just walk by, he told me, afraid to get involved. It makes a difference, he said. The woman from the nearby flower stand told me she was glad I stopped him, too–he had been going for a long time before I got there. My friend on the upturned bucket didn’t really say anything. Maybe she was used to this kind of thing. I don’t know.

The man who stood by me talked to the police, said good-bye and disappeared. I didn’t get his name, and I don’t think I’d recognize him if I saw him again; he was beside me, but my face was turned away from him, engaged with the ugly man.

When I don’t know how to help someone in their battle, or how to engage with the pain others are experiencing, I think about that good man. He didn’t jump in or take over, he didn’t give me advice. He just stood by me.

I can do that.

Culture Shock

October 9, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Moving here felt like moving to a different country. I think it took a year to feel comfortable–to know where to find parking, where to shop, how to get around–to master the details of daily life.

Such narrow streets. So many pedestrians. Crazy, horn-blowing, illegal U-turning drivers. Where were all the usual chain stores and restaurants I knew and loved? Even Safeway felt foreign, with a security guard watching me as I roamed it’s small, crowed aisles. Every day, it felt like an accomplishment to come home and park–two wheels up on the curb so emergency vehicles can get by–safely in front of my house after a foray downtown.

The community, though, is  warmer and friendlier than I thought it would be. I was prepared for cool detachment, people too busy with city life to have relationships. I was wrong. People have deep roots, and many have grown up here, some in the same house for generations.   The small shops and unique restaurants, the streets lined with shady trees and old, quaint homes felt solid, anchored. I did not expect that. I thought I would find isolated people, superficial relationships, a cold and hard place.

The city feels like a small town. It’s the rootedness, the focus on local businesses.  It feels connected also because the school district actively  integrates the schools, by busing students and by having only one large high school. Your neighborhood includes much more of the city when your school is all the way across town. Without these sometimes-controversial policies (the district has been sued for reverse discrimination), there would quickly become “good” schools in the more expensive neighborhoods and “bad” schools in the less pricey areas. The Hills and The Flats.

These policies became real  for us when our kids were not assigned to the the lovely elementary school two blocks away from our house; they were bused to a school downtown, while others from down the hill come up to our neighborhood.

My first thoughts were not joy at this tangible example of justice and equality. They were more along the lines of feeling wronged, judged by my race and zip-code. It’s not fair that I should have to suffer, that my kids should ride the bus for an hour each way to attend a school with lower academic performance. I started thinking about how to protest, force the issue, get what I wanted for my children.

Another thought came tumbling in, though: an awareness of my privilege, my power, and a sense of how flexing those muscles runs counter to the ideals I said I wanted my children to discover and own. I agree with the purpose of the bussing. I love that Berkeley cares about every child receiving a good education. Can I then say I don’t want my kids to participate?

Here’s the reality: My kids have everything they need. They have supportive, involved parents. They are never cold, hungry, or alone. They will go to college if they want to. They lack nothing, really. I don’t have to go scraping and scratching to snatch up the best of everything.

Now, all have moved through elementary and middle school, and looking back, I’m satisfied with their experience at their school in The Flats. It was an involved, caring community. They made good friends, and met back up with some of them in high school after going to different middle schools. It was a broadening experience for all of us. Not what I would have chosen. Better than that.

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