101 Hours Last Week But I STILL Went To The Depeche Mode Convention

As you can see, I'm still alive.

Week two of my oh so grueling work schedule is in full swing. I worked 101 hours last week and even though at times I thought my head might explode, I decided to go to the Depeche Mode Convention on Sunday night.

Seriously, even in the midst of the busiest schedules, I really believe you have to put the most important things first. And we all know, in my life, Depeche Mode is up there in importance. Eradicate educational inequity, sure. But being in a room full of crazy Depeche Mode fans certainly can make you energized and ready for
crazy. work.week.part.deux.

In A Bookstore But Not Trying To Read "The Foot Book"

Gosh, I've been so ridiculously busy all week. I've been meaning to tell you all about this:

Monday night in Barnes and Noble, I was sitting in the cafe, meeting with one of my teachers. Suddenly, I felt something touch my foot. And then it touched it again.

Initially, I didn't think anything of this. After all, you know how people accidentally kick you under the table or think they're resting their foot on a table leg and it's actually not a table leg, it's your foot. I thought the teacher I was meeting with might just be bumping into me or something. So I moved my foot a little. Problem solved, right?

Well, a few seconds later, whatever it was, touched my foot again. And then it stayed there, rubbing against my foot.

What was it, you wonder?

Not a mouse.
Not a rat.
Not the teacher I was sitting with.

It was the man sitting at the table behind me.

When I have more time, I'll tell you what happened next, but I'm curious. What would you have done in that situation?

Today I Wish I Was Six

Remember those days when the only thing you had to worry about was how to coerce your parents into taking you to Toys-R-Us?

To your left are some prime examples of begging to go to Toys-R-Us faces, just in case you have never seen one live and in-person.

The begging was unsuccessful. Their disappointment was heartbreaking.

Ah, if that was all I had to worry about...I'm facing another 80 plus hour work week this week. It has me wishing I was six.

Think about it, if I was six, it wouldn't matter that I just wrote on the front of my white shirt. I have meetings till 10 pm and I'll be wearing this white shirt. In fact, if I was six years old, folks would expect me to spill things on myself, to write on myself.

If I was six, I wouldn't have to be figuring out how I can work 80 plus hours and still go get my hair done. Right now, I wish I had dredlocks . Either dreds or I want to cut all my hair off and have a short 'fro.

But if I was six, I wouldn't have this blog. And I would miss all of you all that are so kind and leave me comments. So, I guess I'll take the schedule, knowing my life will be more normal in two weeks.

Lucky Seven

The lovely Mamita Umita tagged me last week and I've been a complete slacker about doing this meme.

The rules: each person tagged gives 7 random facts about themselves, and then tags 7 people to do the same. So, seven random things?

1) When I lived in Guangzhou, China, I got into seven bike accidents. Some of them were serious, like being hit by a truck. Some of them were just downright embarrassing. So embarrassing, I never wanted to come out of the house again.

One day I was riding through Guangzhou's equivalent of Times Square. Imagine me riding along in my very long skirt, just like all the Chinese women around me. But then imagine my skirt blows back, gets caught in the back wheel/chain of my bike. Now imagine the skirt starts to rip, because I'm still moving forward. Long story short, the skirt ripped so much that I ended up wearing only my underwear and a few strips of fabric hanging from the skirt's waistband. Oh, yeah, thousands of people seeing me in my underwear. Great. Just great.

The icing on the cake was the well-dressed businessman who stepped off the curb and introduced himself. "Hi, my name is Andy." (Eyes moving up and down my body while he's talking.) "You are very beautiful. Would you like to practice English with me?"

2) I have panic attacks and start to feel ill if I'm going to be late. It used to be so bad that if I got somewhere and I was late, I sometimes wouldn't even go inside. I'm better now but I still have to mentally psych myself up to walk into anything late. It doesn't even matter if it's one or two minutes, I still freak out.

3) I really dislike Tom Cruise. These days, it's sort of en vogue to dislike Tom Cruise. Well I have never liked him. Never ever. His lawyers are probably filing suit as I type this but I really don't like him. It's not just the Scientology thing either because I didn't like him before I knew he was a Scientologist. I've never seen Risky Business, none of the Mission Impossible movies, not even Interview with the Vampire. I've only seen Minority Report and Magnolia and only because I ended up at someone's house who decided to rent the films. I can't quite put my finger on why I don't like him. When I figure it out, I'll let you know.

4) I adore Mandarin collars on shirts. I've been so happy that they're in style these days because I have several of them. Maybe I'll wear one today!

5) I've seen the movie The Saint with Val Kilmer and Elisabeth Shue over fifty times. This movie, it's not the best film on earth, but I love it. I'm not sure how many times I've seen it since I stopped counting after fifty. But, I've seen it so much, I have about 75% of the dialogue memorized.

6) I was a cheerleader for one year. Tried out. Made the varsity squad my junior year in high school. "Go-Team-Go'ed" for that one year. And then I was done. Back to more worthy causes like the Amnesty International club.

7) I once went on a blind date with a friend's brother. My friend set the whole thing up, and I went because she swore we'd be perfect for each other. I should have known better because his name was Linden. Anyway, I show up at this coffee shop and she'd neglected to mention that her brother was about 5'5" and chubby. In fact, I remember her saying, "Oh, he's a little taller than you are, maybe 5'9" or something." This brother, man oh man, he was so pompous and annoying. I remember I asked him what the most important thing in life was and he answered that he just wanted to be successful and make a lot of money. I was ready to go twenty minutes into our conversation. In fact, I remember that he annoyed me so much that I stopped being nice and just let my evil side come out. I was as mean as possible so he wouldn't even remotely think I was interested.

My friend, of course, got mad about my treatment of her brother and declared that our friendship was over. Such is life.

So that's seven random things about me. I'm not in a tagging state of mind but if you'd like to share random things about yourself, let me know and I'll come by and check them out.

This Old Ride

My first thought on seeing this car in the Rite Aid parking lot was, "Ooh, let me hurry up and snap a picture of this before the owner comes back."

I don't have anything against old cars and I don't believe everyone needs to have a spanking new car. After all, my own car is ten years old, paid for, and it still runs pretty well. The doors may have a whole lot of scratches on them, but whatever. I would draw the line at having to drive around with contraptions holding my ride together.

As I pulled out my camera, I realized it could get a little uncomfortable trying to explain to the owner exactly why I was taking a picture.

"Dude, um, yeah, I was just so fascinated by the fact that the front of your car is being held up by a...well, whatever that thingamajig is."

I'm so sexist. I'm assuming it's a guy's car. But I just don't know how many ladies are going to roll around with that thing on the front of their car.

The homeless woman outside the Rite Aid was watching me. I started envisioning her yelling, "OOH, I'm telling! You're taking pictures of someone's car!"

And then the owner, probably some Silver Lake/Los Feliz hipster in an anti-Bush shirt would rush from the Rite Aid and lecture me on how it's not cool to photograph other people's cars.

So, with my picture surreptitiously snapped, I quickly went through the sliding doors and into the Rite Aid. They were out of the sunblock I was looking for, so less than two minutes later, I walked out of the store.

The car was gone.

The homeless lady said, "Someone stole your car."

She thought it was my car since I was taking pictures of it. I didn't quite understand this because wouldn't she have seen the same person getting in and out of the car? I wished I'd seen the owner myself, wished I'd seen the person who is proudly driving around in this city of image and status with a whatever it is on the front of their ride.

Then again, maybe the owner of this car is in the process of rehabbing it. Maybe when I see this car again, it'll be tricked out with cherry red paint, lightning bolts across the hood, and lots of chrome to reflect the LA sun. It'll have a flat screen TV in the roof so the birds can watch the National Geographic channel.

It'll probably look so pretty that I'll try to snap a picture, never even realizing it's the same car.

It'll be like those old Jenny Jones shows where the unattractive girl from high school has gut rehabbed herself into a beautiful, anatomically perfect, cellulite-free woman and then confronts the person who mercilessly teased her.

The car will be saying, "How ya like me now!"

Take Your Race Card And Shove It.

When I was around ten or eleven years old, I accompanied my mother on a shopping trip to the mall. We went to the regular department stores that my mom frequented. At one of the stores, my mom put her selections, an assortment of absolutely beautiful clothes, on the counter. (My mom has always had impeccable clothes sense.)

The saleswoman rang everything up and my mom passed her department store credit card across the counter. The saleswoman took the card and then told my mom she also needed to see two photo IDs and another credit card with her name on it.

This was not the first time my mom had shopped in this department store. In fact, she'd had an account there for several years. Needless to say, my mom was not amused at all. But, she's got class, so I remember she patiently and politely asked the saleswoman why she needed two picture IDs and another credit card with her name on it. She was told it was store policy. I saw my mom's face and heard her tone harden just a bit as she pointed out that she hadn't heard the customers in line in front of us being asked for this much ID. The saleswoman claimed that she had asked for this from the other women. This was a flat out lie.

Those other women were white. My mom is black.

My mom pulled the items she was interested in buying up off the counter and walked away. She was so angry. Very angry. But she wanted those clothes. We went to another register in another section of the department store. This saleswoman took my mom's credit card and driver's license. She didn't ask for anything else, no two picture ids. No major credit card. She was also very apologetic when my mom shared what had happened at the other register.

Now, if I went shopping with my father, I never saw this kind of thing happen to him. In fact, my father still usually has to ask the person behind the counter, "Would you like to see my ID?"

My father is not a black man. Nope. He's white.

Fast forward twenty years...

My husband went to the Banana Republic at The Grove here in LA and bought me two pairs of earrings for Mother's Day. One pair, I absolutely loved. The other I did not care for at all because they are gold and I don't really wear gold that much. He decided to take them back and get me something else, but our schedules being what they are, the first real opportunity to do so was yesterday. While I was in the Barnes and Noble, he and my two sons walked down to Banana Republic.

He had a receipt... he had the earrings, still attached to the packaging. But, he was told that he couldn't return the earrings because he'd removed the price tag. He explained that they were a gift so of course he took off the price tag. The saleswoman told him he should have scratched the price off with a pen instead of taking the tag off. And how did she know that the earrings really hadn't actually been worn?

Nowhere on the Banana Republic receipt is this "must have tags attached" policy listed. This policy is not on their website either.

My husband, bless his soul, decided to go ahead and buy another pair of earrings because he still wanted to get me something.

I ran into him while he was sitting outside on his cell phone talking to the manager at Banana Republic discussing this. He was told on the phone that he could absolutely return the earrings, no problem. He got off the phone and told me what went down. The whole story made me so angry that I told him I didn't want the other newly purchased pair of earrings either.

It made me so angry that I told him I wanted to accompany him to the store.

We went inside the Banana Republic, waited in line for a few minutes, and finally were able to approach a dark haired saleswoman. My husband started to explain what had happened and said to her, "Were you the person I spoke to on the phone because the voice sounds like yours."

She said no. Right off the bat, her tone, her body language were showing that she couldn't be bothered with him. She spoke to him like he was an annoyance, and definitely made me firm up my resolve to return both pairs of earrings.

He began to re-explain what had happened in the store, what he'd been told on the phone, and she interrupted him, rudely snapping, "Where are the earrings? Where's the receipt."

She then started up on her, "You can't return the earrings because there's no tags." I pointed out to her that that this not included on the receipt or on the return policy poster put up in the store and that was not what my husband had been told on the phone. She had nerve enough to narrow up her eyes at me. She then patronizingly started to explain hygiene rules to me. I explained to her that someone could put the earrings on without taking the tag off, that if they didn't want him to take the tag off, they should have given him a sticker to put over the price, and that that was beside the point because he had been told on the phone that he could return the earrings, no problem, that the only thing that store policy said was needed was the receipt.

She ignored what had been said on the phone and started trying to argue with us about it. One thing you learn as a teacher is the broken record technique. Just repeat the facts over and over. And over. Finally, she said she'd take them back...made a big show of, "Let me look them up in the product book just to make sure they're our earrings."

Wow.

My husband pointed out that there was another pair of the same earrings in the case if she didn't believe that the earrings had actually come from Banana Republic.

She asked why we were returning the second, newly purchased pair of earrings and I told her that we don't have to shop where there is an inconsistent return policy or where we are treated rudely. I told her that there are plenty of stores in LA for me to shop at and I know for a fact that I can walk half a block up to Nordstrom's and return a dress I've already worn even if I don't have the receipt. I then asked her who the manager at the store was.

"I am the manager," she snarled.

I told her that her behavior was especially disturbing because at no point did she apologize for the inconsistent information, her tone was rude, her facial expressions were rude and I would be calling Banana Republic's 800 number. I pulled out my phone, started punching in the numbers and told her to have a nice day.

I get Banana Republic customer service on the line after about 10 minutes. The woman listened as I explained what had happened. She asked me store location, etc. Then she asked me what my name was.

"Liz Dwyer," I said.

"Oh, Liz Dwyer! My best friend is named Liz Dwyer!" she exclaimed. "What a great Irish name."

She offered me a $15 gift card to Banana, which I turned down. I told her I appreciated her offer, but that they'd probably lost me as a customer. She was still really nice and told me she hoped I'd change my mind.

Now, I found myself thinking about a couple of things. One, when my husband was in front of a salesperson the first time, they could see his color, see his blackness. He was treated like he'd stolen the earrings. However when he was on the phone with the store manager, when she could not see his skin color, she was very accommodating and helpful. Then when we went back into the store for the second time to return both pairs of earrings, the manager of the store LIED and said she hadn't talked to him and was incredibly rude and insulting. She could see our color again. See that blackness.

When I called Banana Republic customer service and gave them my name, it was definitely assumed that I'm Irish/white because of my name. Was that the reason the woman was so nice and offered me a $15 gift card? Because she couldn't see my color? I'd like to hope not, but I can't help but wonder.

Next time someone wants to tell you that racism doesn't exist, that black people are just pulling the race card, the next time they tell you that my parent's experience is a thing of the past, tell them this story.

The Interview

Have you ever wondered a few things about some of the bloggers you visit regularly? Well, if you have, you'll be happy to know that there's an interview meme floating around!

I volunteered to be interviewed by Velvet at Secret Suburban Misfit. She sent five questions for me to answer about myself and voila, here are my answers.

1. What inspired you to start blogging?

This blog will celebrate it's fourth birthday this coming August. Yeah, it's been a long time. I'm really trying to remember why I started blogging without projecting my current thoughts/perspective onto who I was then or what I was feeling four years ago. When I go back and read my first few posts, they annoy me immensely. I suppose years from now I'll come back and read this post and probably feel the same way.

Anyway, I digress. I believe there are two main reasons I started blogging:

First, I needed a creative outlet. I hadn't been writing much at all when I began blogging and I felt frustrated and blocked. Just stuck. I wanted to write but I wasn't writing, and you aren't a writer unless you're actually writing. (duh!) Essentially, I really missed having some form of creative expression and I needed a low stakes way for me to once again feel the magic of putting words together.

Second, (I feel a little "confessional" writing this, but I'll go ahead and fess up) I was also a little lonely. I didn't have much of a life at the time, and didn't have many people I could really talk to. I was a mom to two small boys and all I did was go to work and come home and change diapers. There's nothing wrong with changing diapers and certainly, the most important thing I will ever do is be a mother, but...you know what I mean. I needed somewhere to put my thoughts, opinions and observations and those can't always be told to a three year-old or the people around you. Sometimes because they don't want to hear it, sometimes because they are too busy themselves to be able to listen, even if they wanted to. And so, the blog was born.

2. You're granted the superpower of your choice. What do you choose and why?
This is the easiest question of the bunch. I'm so jealous of Hiro Nakamura from the show Heroes. I want his ability to teleport himself to and fro and bypass that pesky time/space continuum.

When I was little, I used to fantasize that I could travel back to the late 1700s or to the Regency period. My mom had to remind me that I might not want to do that because then I'd most likely be a slave, or else I might catch cholera, smallpox, tuberculosis...wow, the good old days weren't all that good, were they?

3. If you could share one thing or time from your childhood with your own children, what or when would it be and why?

Some of my fondest childhood memories are of working in the yard with my mom. We'd plant flowers and pull the weeds out of the flower beds. It was so nice to be outside in the dirt, the hot summer sun beating down, worms slithering against my hand, black ants scurrying to and fro and grey roly poly bugs balling themselves up if I poked them. I'd help dig deep holes for peonies and rose bushes. Once, we planted a crab apple tree, which was quite an accomplishment. That tree is huge now.

There's something grounding about planting things and watching them grow and I want to pass that on to my boys. I really think the reason we have so many environmental problems now is that there are too many people who've never had the experience of working the earth so there's less of a connection.

4. If you had to leave LA, where would you move if you could choose anywhere in the world to live? Why?

Ok, the fantasy is that I'm moving to Villefranche-sur-Mer, France. It's on the Riviera between Monaco and Nice. Look at that picture. Doesn't that look amazing? I mean, who wouldn't want to live there?

If not there, well, it's no secret that I absolutely love Santa Barbara, California.

Both places, it's all about the ocean, mountains, and that special hint of mystery and romance.

5. You can invite five living people to meet for dinner. Who would you choose?

Living people. Only five. Hmm... Out of the people I know, how do I only pick five? I just don't think I can do it, so I"m going to only pick famous people.

1) Martin Gore of Depeche Mode: Martin is the heart and soul of Depeche Mode and since they are my absolute favorite band in the world, it's a no brainer that Mart is gonna be sitting down for dinner with me.

I think he's the best songwriter of our time. Plus, he sings, plays keyboards and guitar. I'd ask him how it felt to discover well into adulthood that his biological father is black. I ask him about the process he uses to write songs. I'd probably make singing a song optional, but I definitely wouldn't mind hearing a tune or two.



2) Orlando Bloom: A/K/A "Will Turner" from POTC but B/K/A "Legolas" from LOTR. Is that enough acronyms for you?

If you're a reader of this blog, you knew this one was coming. Why Orlando? Well, I want to hear about his spiritual quest and how his life has changed since becoming a Buddhist, and is he doing real Buddhism or the Hollywood version. I want to hear about his environmental activism, how he feels about his acting abilities, and, cough, I want a picture with him so I can stop posing with the full-size Legolas poster.

3) Barack Obama: I have been a Barack fan since he ran for Senate. He's got heart, he's got spark, and I sort of wish he wasn't running for president because he's so great. I want to know how it feels to have to have the Secret Service stalking you. I want to hear what he plans to do about education in America. He can bring his wife Michelle with him too because I really like her.

4) Chuck D: I remember the first time I heard It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back by Public Enemy. Chuck D's voice was so powerful, so distinctive. It was a voice of social consciousness, a voice asking tough questions about racism in our society. I got the opportunity to interview him in 1994 and it was a profound experience. Now that Chuck's a few years shy of fifty, he's focusing more on his political and social activism, which isn't a huge surprise since that's what he's always been about. I also always like that not trying to promote himself more than the cause he's talking about.

And in case you think I'm just trying to sit at a table full of men, last but not least...

5) My sister: OK, I know I said famous people but it's either my sister or Angelina Jolie and so I pick my sister to come to dinner with me. My sister Cyndee is one of coolest people I know. She's seven years older than me and about five inches shorter than I am. She's seriously the most type-A, OCD/neat-freak person I've ever known. And she's a police officer/polygraph examiner (so she knows when you're lying). She'd be great at this dinner party because she can talk to anyone about anything and she's not going to be annoying and fawn all over some folks just because they're famous.

If you wish to do this meme:
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions. (They probably won't be the same ones you see above!)
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

I Broke My Laptop

Eek.

Yeah, I cracked the screen this morning.

I'm so upset that I did it. Total accident and I won't get into the sorry details. The worst part is that the latest part of my novel I'm working on is my laptop and I can't see the screen to get it off.

Why oh why didn't I back it up to my flash drive?

I'm kicking myself right now.

Why I Do What I Do

On Friday, I wrote about the educational disparities between two schools in the greater Chicagoland area, Harper High and Neuqua Valley High. You can scroll down to read what I wrote if you want to get the background scoop because I'm too pressed for time to recap (got an event to get ready for!) This morning, I started to write a comment replying to fellow bloggers, one of my favorites, DJ Black Adam and Kim (you need a blog so I can link to you!), but it was turning into the longest comment on earth. So I'm going to post it here for everyone to read:

I agree that blindly following the dictates of the clergy or refusing to hold Massa Mayor Daley accountable for the promises he's made are factors in the mix. I'm glad the kids got a pool but Jesse jumping into it sounds a little like a photo-op. But, I wouldn't say that people being happy that kids got a pool is the root cause of the problem. That's why the part of the story where the girl was talking about whether she was getting the same academic education resonated with me the most.

Let me tell everybody where I am coming from...

I have worked with almost 100 schools across Los Angeles and Compton over the past 8 years and I definitely have seen that race is a factor. If I take the top five lowest performing schools in Los Angeles, I can probably count the number of white students in those five schools on both hands. And that's about 10,000 kids total. We have year-round schools out here because of school overcrowding. You'd be hard pressed to find a year-round school in a predominantly white area. Now, if I'm a kid on "B-Track", from K-12, I'm going to get 2 years less schooling than a kid on a traditional school schedule. Would middle-class or wealthier white parents stand for that? No, probably not. Why? Not because they care more about their kids. No, they wouldn't stand for it because they've been socialized to believe that they deserve so much more. As my mom used to say, "___thinks her ass is gold plated!"

It's not that poor black and Latino parents don't complain about all kinds of stuff, including the year-round schools, or that they don't care or don't want to challenge the status quo. First of all, some don't even KNOW that they CAN complain about it. If they go to the school site and complain to the principal, chances are they are going to get treated in a disrespectful manner. I've sat in LOTS of front offices and seen it happen. We'd all be a lot better off if we just owned up to the fact that we treat rich folks better. And you throw some rich white folks in the mix, man oh man, folks are falling all over each other with their effusive shucking and jiving.

Some parents are just grateful that their kid gets to go to school at all. The pressures of being a minimum wage worker and trying to afford housing, clothes, food and put gas in the car are tough. If I work and get paid $10 an hour, that means I'm taking home, before taxes, about $1600 a month. Say my hard-working husband makes the same.... That's $3200 before taxes. If I have two kids and we have a two bedroom apartment, I can automatically axe out AT LEAST $1K for rent. I'm really trying to figure out how someone survives on that and still manages to be at school for the 4:00 parent conference. But wait, if they don't show, we want to say they don't care.

Parents are stressed out just trying to put the food on the table and I've seen that this means that they can have a bit of a blind trust in the school site. We've bought the lie that everyone is getting the same great education despite where they go to school. That's just not true. Parents are telling their kids to work hard in school, to act right, to stay out of trouble. And then what happens...they get teachers that sell weed on the side. They get teachers that can sit up in the classroom, give the kids a worksheet and read the newspaper. They get teachers that tell them, "If you don't want to be here, don't come."

If I see a set of 35 science textbooks at a school, I know that 180 students have to share those books. The books can never go home. That would never happen in a wealthier area and yes, parents would raise hell if the principal told them, "That's what our budget allows!" But to a poor black parent complaining about this, that parent gets treated like the problem for complaining. That parent gets told, "That's the way it is." And it's suggested that the parent should be grateful that their child even has that. See that there are no real expectations that those kids are going to excel academically. Slavery and segregation weren't just about physical oppression. It was about mental oppression as well. It was about getting black folks to the point where we don't expect ourselves to excel too much and we don't challenge the authority systems in this country too much, because guys only need to stop snitchin' and girls need only be a booty-shaking slut...all images put forward with the stamp of approval of the white owned record companies.

Anyway, to me, that's why the kids in Matteson, IL aren't outperforming the kids in Tinley Park. White mothers in Tinley can walk into ANY hair salon and expect to have someone be able to do their hair. White fathers don't have to worry about whether someone is going to call them "articulate" when they are at work. Neither have experience being asked by their boss to accompany them to meetings because a "black face" is needed to represent. (Has happened to me at my current place of employment more than once in the past two years and every time it's, "I hope you understand why I'm asking you to come!") If I went home crazy every day because of that kind of crap, who could blame me? What is the psychological residue of oppression? Not saying it's an excuse, but to act like it doesn't exist is inherently dangerous.

Seriously though, rich parents in Tinley Park don't have to worry that the teachers are going to suggest that their kids are supposed to go to trade school. Can you imagine some kids going to New Trier High School in Winnetka being told to consider taking auto shop classes? I was told that though, "Because being an auto mechanic is a good career for someone like you." You know what my first group of students was called by one of the custodians at my school? They were called the Penal Colony. Yeah, 3rd graders being called the Penal Colony. That has nothing to do with the parents or the community. And if you're told you're nothing, guess what, the self-fulfilling prophecy comes true.

Wealthy white parents will demand certain things because they have an inherent sense of superiority. They are the ruling class in this country. I always say that there are just as many drunks and drug addicts in Compton as there are in Beverly Hills. But guess what, the trifling crystal meth addict parent that shops Rodeo Drive by day and tricks with her husband's friends by night is damn sure that her kid is getting a good decent education...because she has the money to pay for it. I'm sure Paris Hilton's parents were really nurturing and loving people who helped Paris do her homework every night...oh wait, she dropped out of high school. No matter, Paris Hilton gets a reduced sentence for DUI. Is that going to happen to the average black 25 year-old? Nope.

I get angry over teachers, principals and school district officials knowing they can get away with the low academic expectations crap. They know that our society easily reverts to believing that black folks would succeed if they really wanted to...I mean, look at Oprah, the shining example of black billionaire-hood. She's richer than most white folks so how dare anyone black say that racism exists in our educational system or anyplace else!

Here's my thing: Make every school like New Trier and then if people choose to not take advantage of the education, then that's their choice. And when every school is like that, hold every child and parent to the same expectations for academic success and involvement.

As it stands now, ultimately, our society is not going to be too outraged for too long if something bad is happening to poor children of color...and that's why I get up every day and do what I do.

The Nightmare of Harper High

I haven't slept much this week and it's starting to wear on me.

The good news is that I did sleep for about five hours last night, which is more than I can say for both Tuesday night and Wednesday. I may have slept in my clothes, but at least I didn't wake up till around 3:30 this morning. I did laundry, cleaned the house, did some work, and talked on the phone to family back in the Midwest. My sister's recommendation, "Take Tylenol PM."

I don't think even Tylenol PM can banish the images in this video from my mind. In fact, I think I had a dream where I kept drowning in this massive, Olympic size swimming pool. Seriously, take a moment to check out the video. It's the uninspiring stuff of nightmares.

The footage, passed on to me by one of my colleagues, (who, interestingly enough, got it from a teacher who showed it to her students) is from an Oprah Winfrey show that aired last year. In the clip, students from Harper High School in Chicago swap spots with kids from Neuqua Valley High in Naperville, IL, thirty-five miles away.

There are the shots of the Neuqua kids being stunned by the presence of metal detectors at the entrances of Harper. The Harper kids are floored by computer labs and the huge Olympic sized swimming pool at Neuqua. Harper's pool is the size of a small living room and never has any water. The comparisons spotlight all the differences in what the two groups of kids are getting as far as facilities, technology, etc.

The heartbreak really comes though when they compare the academic rigor of the two schools. One of the Harper girls sits in a math class and is shocked by how much more difficult the work is, even though it's technically the same class that she's getting at her own school. She starts to worry about whether she'll be able to survive in college. (I hate to say it, but honey, no one is really expecting you to go to college, or if you do, to get to a top tier school).

I felt so awful for the mom who was crying at the end of the clip because she had no idea how wonderful other schools like Neuqua were and she didn't understand why her daughter's school is allowed to be so inferior.

I have an answer for her: Because your daughter's poor and black. Believe me, if she wasn't, her school wouldn't look the way it does.

I know that not everyone knows that schools like Neuqua Valley exist. But folks know that schools like Harper exist. Parents in rich areas know about schools like Harper because they want to make sure that their child doesn't have to go to a Harper. The way the system runs right now, I should only care about the educational opportunities of my own child, make sure my kids can go to a "good school" and screw everyone else's kids.

In fact, if those lazy black folks (like the mom crying in the clip) really wanted to, they could get off their asses, go to college, get a decent job and move to Naperville too, so their kid could go to a good school too, right? Yes, America is a meritocracy, we all have an equal playing field and if you work hard, you'll get a good education, the best free education in the world.

Yeah, we are good at telling lies in this country to rationalize the fact that we have a racist, unjust and unequal system.

I'll bet those Neuqua Valley kids and their parents were glad that they didn't have to stay at Harper permanently. Thank God this was just an experiment for the Oprah show, right? A little tour to see how the other half lives and then home to swim in the Olympic sized pool.