Jack and Bob Make Babies

Here it is, almost 9:30 and I don't know where the day went.

First of all, school needs to be out, like yesterday. My kids are so over and done with this school year. They don't want to go anymore and they for sure don't want to go to sleep. So what are they doing? Right now, they are in bed and have been (off and on) since a little after 8:00.

Unfortunately though, thanks to Daylight Saving's Time, it's still nice and light outside at 8:00. Why go to sleep when the sun's not down? And since they don't want to go to sleep, they get to fooling around.

First there was an itty bitty spider on the wall in their room. I had to stand on a chair to kill it and then they were scared it was going to come back from the dead like a zombie. Next they were hungry yet again. Trust me though, I believe them when they say they're hungry because these growing boys are like bottomless pits.

How bottomless pit-ish? Well, we went to the Los Feliz Street Fair yesterday, and I watched my seven year-old, "O", sit on the sidewalk in front of Skylight Books and devour one large Jamba Juice and one slice of cheese pizza from Palermo. Then he started begging for my bowl of Channa Masala and rice from Electric Lotus. I felt sorry for him so I went on and gave it to him. Twenty minutes later, he wanted a hot dog. As I sat there watching him scarf down the hot dog, I couldn't help but think, "10th percentile for weight. 90th percentile for height. He's gotta have tapeworms."

Anyway, back to tonight. Their second "dinner" got served to them around 8:45. Then folks had to go to the bathroom yet again. Now they're in their beds pretending that one of them is Robin Hood and the other is the Sheriff of Nottingham.

There's no point in going in there and making some sort of threat like, "If you don't go to sleep I'm gonna throw out all your toys," especially since the acting is so entertaining. Oh wait, they must be finished with Robin Hood and have clearly moved on to scientific inquiry because "O" just yelled, "Hey Mom, what are Jack and Bob doing?"

Remember those silkworms, Jack and Bob, that we picked up at the Bug Fair a few weeks ago? Yeah, if you don't, I don't blame you. I forgot about them too because Jack and Bob spun cocoons and have been chillin' inside them for over two weeks.

Well, today after school, O discovered that Jack and Bob, finally hatched from those cozy cocoons. Our two newly hatched moths then proceeded to have sex with each other all afternoon. Wait, let me go check... yep, still having sex with each other.

Gosh, silkworms. I had no idea the moth Kama Sutra would be going on in my house.

The most awkward moment of the evening was during their second dinner (peanut butter and jelly) when "O" just had to put their little plastic box next to his plate so that he could observe Jack and Bob. He was watching them intently and then he narrowed his eyes and asked, "Why are their butts stuck together like that? And why does Jack keep moving like that?"

Um, er, um. Mommy really doesn't know how to answer those questions without freaking both of us out, so that's why she said, "Because that's what moths do, so eat your sandwich and go to bed!"

Clearly I'm just as unprepared for the animal sex talk as I am for the human sex talk. Eek!

So, yeah, my kids will both be total zombies in the morning. This could work in my favor if Jack and Bob haven't detached from each other by then. The kids might not even notice if they haven't. And if the boys are little tired, hey, they only have a few days of school left. "T" graduates from Pre-K on Thursday and "O" only has till the following Thursday and then we are DONE with this school year!

Protesting LAUSD Education Budget Cuts

In 15 minutes I'll be marching in a picket line outside my son's school. I'm joining 40,000 teachers city-wide to protest the massive $353 million in State of California education budget cuts. $100 million is going to be slashed from LAUSD's budget alone.

We're doing a "late-in" which means that from 7:30-8:30 parents and teachers are going to picket together. The teachers will enter the school at 8:35 and then parents are going to continue the protest till 9 AM. My kids are probably going to go into the school where the administrators and other campus staff can supervise them, much like they do at recess and lunch when teachers get a little break. But I'm tempted to have them both right out there on the sidewalk, protesting with me. After all, it's their educational opportunity that's being stolen away just because some people in our state capital, Sacramento, want to be funny with the money.

Speaking of Sacramento, Superintendent David Brewer says he respects the concerns but we should let folks in Sacramento handle things for us.

Oh, OK. Because just sitting by and letting our government paternalistically handle things has ever worked for Americans? With that sort of thinking, we should still be under British rule! Not to mention that Brewer's a black man so he should know better than to say something so ridiculous. He probably thinks people would free the slaves out of the kindness of their hearts instead of being forced to do so by a little thing called the Civil War.

And maybe Brewer's forgotten how much protesting and marching it took to integrate schools in the first place. I wonder how long it would've taken to get those schools integrated if folks had just waited for someone to "handle" it. Chances are, we'd still be waiting.

What Brewer and all the other folks saying that we shouldn't do this march fail to realize is that getting a good education is the civil rights issue of this generation. We can't stand by and hope that state officials just decide to do the right thing. Budget cuts of this kind in an education system that's already strapped are going to be devastating.

The only way I'm "for" this craziness is if Governor Schwarzenegger puts his kids down in one of the public schools in Watts. Then he can go ahead and cut the budget all he wants. Till that happens, I'm going to be right out there, marching with a huge sign.

No More Principal Dumping

Today was a day for slicking my hair back into the most staid, school-marmish bun you've ever seen in your entire life. It was fine because I was going to a meeting at my son's school and I wanted to look as serious and severe as possible. Yes, "Operation Get a New Principal" is in full effect! All I need is some little spectacles to complete the whole, "I mean business and I'm going after your ass," look. By the way, if you ever meet me, when I wear a black suit, heels, pearls and I have the bun going on, I'm not playing around.

See, I hate it when school administrators try to act like parents are stupid. Coffee with the principal is not the same as holding a workshop for parents. If your a principal and you're sitting across from me, I'm not going to smile as you whine about how you haven't been able to find anybody to do a newsletter at the school. Saying dumb stuff like that is what makes me say things like, "It sounds like you are having a difficult time motivating your staff to execute your directives." I mean, come on -- seven months into the school year and you can't get a newsletter out the door? We're not even getting into how the school councils haven't seen the budget, parent volunteers are discouraged, there was nothing done for Black History Month, and the beloved math coach was "transferred" under suspicious circumstances. And that's just the tip of the iceberg!

This principal has been an administrator for awhile but she's only been at this school for two years. I've met parents from her prior school and they have described to me how they went through the wringer to get her removed. Joy of joys, she got dumped at our school. It's a huge problem that instead of flat out firing bad principals, the school district just moves them to another school.

The most recent example of this is that of an assistant principal who, although investigated for allegedly molesting a student at Foshay Learning Center AND allegedly pulling a gun on the girl's stepdaddy, got transferred to another school, Markham Middle School in Watts. Can we say lawsuit?

Can you imagine what would go down if this alleged molester was a principal in a wealthier area? There'd be no putting him at a different school and hoping it all blows over. Nope, that principal would be very familiar with the concept of administrative leave!

But, this is all OK when you have children of color, when you have more low-income parents, and when parents are less likely to speak up because they don't always know what their children should be getting. But I know what my kids should be getting and I'm not afraid to demand it.

I can't help but think though about how if we're successful, in our efforts she's just going to get dumped at some other school and then the cycle will start all over again. My wish for the day? No more principal dumping!

Race Isn't An Excuse

One of my fellow bloggers, Hammer, left the following comment for me yesterday in response to my post on racism and voting:

Race isn't an excuse. I went to a poor school with broken toilets, teachers who read the paper, 20 year old text books and no lab equipment. But we had no gangs or drugs and pretty much everyone graduated got a job or went to public college.

Declaring racism as an excuse for violent and criminal behavior when is counter productive.

My whole family was poor and or mexican and we got out of the projects despite most white people hating our guts.

I think just as many blacks are voting racism as whites.

So much came to mind in response to this so I figured I'd just post my thoughts right here. (I was going to write about how Madonna's holding dance auditions four blocks from my house but maybe I'll fill you in on that tomorrow. I know, you're sooo disappointed.)

Anyway, I think Hammer's definitely overcome a whole lot and I wish more people had the ability to do so, but it doesn't always work that way. More often, people end up being stuck in a cycle of generational poverty. And instead of focusing on whether the poor have realistic opportunities to get out of the situations they're in, our society is trained to instead blame those who need our help. I am all for individual accountability but when it involves children, I just want there to be a real solution that allows them to be able to have real choices about their lives.

People excuse racism in this country and behave like it's just people saying mean things to other people. I can deal with name calling. I've been called a zebra, an Oreo, and a crispy, critter, burnt up ni**er.

So, I suppose I could pat myself on the back and say, "Whatever, and now I've got a graduate degree!" I suppose I could also pat myself on the back for not being an addict saying, "I'm addicted to crack because people called me bad names." But it's not about me.

There are plenty of other people I've known over the course of my life who didn't make it. It's not just about one person pulling themselves up. How can I celebrate when others still suffer?

No, race should not be an excuse. But, just because it shouldn't be an excuse doesn't mean that racism isn't alive and well. We like to think it's just name calling, but unfortunately racism involves power. Mortgage lenders can decide whether or not to grant a loan. Landlords can decide whether or not they want black folks renting apartments in their building. My landlord never met me before he rented this apartment to me. All he saw was my nice Irish last name on the application I faxed to him. I know it worked in my favor.

Power means journalists can spin stories a certain way and influence the masses. And before we know it, you and I don't know the truth.

City officials have the power to decide whether or not they're going to let gangs take over a neighborhood. We can "conquer" Iraq but we can't root gangs out of Los Angeles?

Um, yeah. Okay.

Hammer mentions that he didn't have gangs back when he was in school. Well, if only we could be so lucky these days. As you all know very well, here in LA, gangs are no joke. They start recruiting when the kids are in 2nd/3rd grade. The kids with no fathers think the gang members are cool guys that are just trying to protect the neighborhood, even if everyone is terrified of them. Those guys have the cars, the cash, and all the cool tattoos that everyone from ball players to rockers have these days. It's all very appealing to a young mind.

Even for me, in high school I talked to gang members all the time. I thought they were just cool, misunderstood guys. The reality is that they were the guys who didn't know how to read past a 3rd/4th grade level. They were the guys who only knew basic math. And they were the guys who'd never been given leadership opportunities because teachers were so busy labeling them as bad and sending them to the office for random crap.

A few years ago, before rents in my neighborhood went pscyho, two Latino guys with all the requisite tattoos and wife beater shirts started sitting on my front porch. And then this kid that lived next door would be out there with them. Now, where's his mom? She's at work because she's gotta pay her rent and she has no one to watch her son after school. She figures her boy's in 4th grade, he can come home and stay in the house after school. Where's dad? Who knows, but you know, that's only a bad thing if you're poor. Rich people are single parents too and no one's shaking their head at them, even if they should.

One day I came home and these guys are on the porch with this kid, Anthony. I went to get the mail and they told me to get them a glass of water. You'd best believe my ass went to the kitchen and got them a glass of water. I was just as nice and sweet to them as could be. If I called the cops, guess what? They're going to know I called and did I really want to deal with that? Um, nope. Especially since I'd seen some of the other stuff they did to people in our neighborhood.

Anthony ended up getting kicked out of two elementary schools. Two schools, that are about .1% white and almost 100% low income. No one can tell me that the level of ineptitude and lack of academic focus that went on in his schools would be tolerated in a middle-class white neighborhood. And of course, teachers have the power to decide whether they want to believe that the kids they're teaching can really achieve or not.

In my own life, I had guidance counselors tell me I didn't need to take the SAT and I should just consider going to community college. Counselors told me I should take auto shop because I might be a great mechanic. They weren't telling any of the white kids in my Advanced Placement physics class that they should be mechanics too. Nope. Just me. And that's racism.

Now, whether I believe I should be a mechanic or not is another thing, but when you have people who've been systemically told for generations, you're inferior, well, not everyone has the ability to hear what the guidance counselor is saying and know that something in the milk ain't clean.

I've seen teachers sit around and say, "Let's face it, these kids just aren't that smart and at the most, they're going to be flipping burgers or cutting lawns." Why do these teachers say these things? Quite frankly deep down inside, they believe the kids aren't smart because they're not white.

Disagree with me if you will but I have my sister calling me last week telling me how my nephew's math teacher split up the class into a low group and a high group and all the kids in the high group are white and Asian. Guess what color all the kids in the low group are? They're the black kids. There's not one white child in the low group. And my nephew is frickin' gifted, okay? He's one of the smartest kids I've ever seen and I'm not just saying that because he's related to my brilliance!

My sister asked the teacher about this situation and the teacher got mad and did the, "How dare you call me a racist?" thing. Well, what the heck else is it when my nephew is getting an A but gets put in the low group? Just a friendly mistake? I don't think so.

My sister has the social and cultural skills to address the situation. But what happens if people are poor and uneducated and that the child comes home and says they got put in the low group for math? Well, that parent might do what my sister did and talk to the teacher and principal. But if that parent has limited English ability, they may feel incompetent. If that parent hated school and didn't do so well he/she may feel uncomfortable talking to a teacher and may think that the lack of math ability is inherited. That parent may have addiction issues or be abusive and so may not even care. Regardless of the reason, if the child is allowed to remain in the low math group, guess what? He falls behind. I don't care what teachers tell you, as someone who's been a teacher, the low group never catches up to the high group. Never.

So that kid Anthony that used to be in my building? His family ended up moving to a different building a few blocks away and I haven't seen him although I see his tag, "FACTS" all over the neighborhood. I ran into his mom the other day. Anthony's been kicked out of middle school, has been arrested several times, and is in a juvenile detention home -- where he, of course, is probably learning how to be a better criminal. His mom's just trying to hold it together for her younger daughter. She's given up hope on Anthony because, as she said, the gang owns him now.

Should she have moved heaven and earth to make sure her child didn't end up in that gang? Yes. Should Anthony have had some sort of intrinsic motivation that made him, "Just Say No," to those gang members? Some sense of right and wrong that made him say no to that pressure. Absolutely. But sadly enough, fourth graders don't always have the resources to make that decision on their own.

The only other thing I have to say is as far black folks voting racism...well, I know a lot of black people who used to love Hillary Clinton and are now are choosing to not vote for her precisely because of the racial games her campaign has played. She brought that on herself. But people voting for Barack only because he's black? Sure, some people probably are, and even though whites have done it for forever, two wrongs don't make a right. I actually think most black people voting for him are voting for him on issues and because they're inspired by him, just like all the other Obamaniacs of all colors out there.

So Hammer, thank you for sparking all these thoughts. I think about these kinds of things all the time. These issues hit me in a certain place because I look in the eyes of my sons every single day and know what this world has in store for them. I always say that people think my boys are so cute and adorable now, but in about ten years, they're going to be scared of them. I'm going to have to worry about cops pulling them over because they look suspect. I'm going to have to worry about a new generation of teachers telling them they're nothing. And I plan to fight it all tooth and nail.

I wish I didn't have to.

Rolling the Dice With Los Angeles Magnet Schools

The deadline is looming!

Friday, January 11, 2008 at 5:00 P.M. is a moment of agony for thousands of LA parents.

It's the deadline for the infamous "Choices" brochure. If you're an LA parent with a child in public school, you are probably very familiar with this brochure and all the anxiety it causes.

However, for those of you who either live in other parts of the world or amble along in childless bliss, here's a nice, positive summing up of the pyschotic magnet world, courtesy of this LA Times article:

"The magnet system established specialty schools that have become, in many cases, the district's brightest centers of academic excellence. It was intended to give families the motivation to voluntarily desegregate a district that was deeply polarized along racial lines. It hasn't fully met that promise -- many schools in the district remain racially isolated. But numerous magnet schools have become models of integration."

Basically, if your child gets into a magnet, they have a better chance of getting a great education. And guess what? Race is the main criteria for admission in these schools and they try to create a 40% white / 60% non-white or a 30% white / 70% non-white balance.

This race-based admissions policy got challenged in court but, surprisingly since this is California, the land of Proposition 209, the challengers lost.

As a side note, I love how in the Choices brochure "white" is defined as, "A non-Hispanic person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, North Africa, or the Middle East, e.g., England, Egypt, Russia or Iran."

So if you're from Iraq or Iran, congratulations, you're white! I could write a whole separate post on LAUSD's racial classifications but I'll save it for another day. I'm just wondering though, has anyone told George Bush that according to LAUSD, 2/3 of the Axis of Evil is white?

Anyway, I've always been an advocate of supporting my neighborhood school and I'm happy with my both my son's teachers. However, I would like more racial diversity, more science, social studies and art and a principal focused on making the school one of the best in the state. So I figured, why not give the magnet thing a whirl and see what happens?

You can only apply to one magnet per year so I submitted applications for both of my sons to a fab K-5 school with lots of diversity and through the roof test scores. However, last year there were 35 openings and 1,652 applications for this school.

Yeah, you read those numbers right.

So that means they have a 2.1% chance of getting in. Boy, with those kinds of odds, maybe I should go buy a lottery ticket too.

And the Vegas-style admissions odds aren't limited to just the school I applied to. Nope, take a look at the numbers for Valley Alternative where 2.2% of applicants are going to get in. Read their "Success Secret".

Now to me, it seems like there are a whole lot of parents out there who'd love to have their high school-aged child educated so well that when they go to high school, they're far enough ahead that they're taking college level classes. But if your kid doesn't get into Valley Magnet, you can kinda forget about that.

You might also have to forget about getting an education good enough to be able to comprehend a high school textbook. In the magnet brochure, they list out what are called "Program Improvement" schools. Program Improvement (PI) schools are schools that are scraping the bottom of the academic barrel. They have the absolute lowest test scores. And in this city, there are 163 elementaries (uh huh) that are PI schools.

Even if a school isn't a PI school, that doesn't mean it's excellent. Nope, a whole lot of them are just barely avoiding being PI schools. There are way too many schools in this city that are just so-so. They aren't cringe-worthy, but they're not awesome either.

Chances are my kids are gonna get rejected from the magnet we applied to. I'm looking into some other options but I'm fully prepared to have to keep supplementing their education here at home.

But doesn't it somehow seem illegal, immoral even, to give a better education to kids who, through the luck of the draw, get into one of these magnets?

I say yes.

Now since LAUSD is turning me into a gambler, let me go buy my Mega Millions lottery ticket.

Traffic, Bad Schools, Environment, Housing: LA Gets A "D"

EEK! Southern California got a D on some sort of livability report card!

Our grade was brought down by traffic, bad schools and the environment, housing and a few other pesky little "issues".

Anyone who is even thinking about coming to LA knows traffic is no joke out here. Personally, I think it's worse in Atlanta. And the last time I was back in Chicago, I thought I was going to have an aneurysm on the Dan Ryan. But I'll admit there are times I don't go places because I don't want to deal with traffic. Tell me to drive anywhere west of where I live in the morning and I'm going to give you the evil eye. Going east in the afternoon? Heck no!

As for the environment? I'm not a smoker but I know my lungs are probably not as healthy as they could be. The pollution is bad. Not as bad as it was when I lived in China, but it's bad.

I do think some of you all have pollution that's probably close to as bad as LA, but you're not the most polluted city in the US so you don't worry about it as much.

As for education, oh, schools here are AWFUL. There's no way around that one. I am going to a magnet school fair tomorrow because I don't know if I can take our neighborhood school anymore. I like my son's teachers but there's a lot that's lacking at the school and there doesn't seem to be a realization or acknowledgement that things are lacking. I mean it's December and the computer lab just opened up...and I think that happened because I, and some other parents, complained.

But the magnet thing is not a slam dunk. One, it's a lottery. Two, we can only apply to ONE magnet. Three, if my eldest gets in, his school might be 40 minutes away with traffic and he'd have to ride a bus. I don't know about all that. He's already ahead in reading and doing great in math so maybe I should leave him be till he gets a little older. Ugh.

However, despite the "D", I'm not moving.

There's no place else in the States, other than Santa Barbara, that I really want to move to. Everyone keeps hyping Portland to me, but I don't know if I could deal with the constant rain after living here in LA.

Where would you live in the States if there were no obstacles to you moving there?

Speaking of housing though, here's a little bit of fun advertising that I lifted from the sidebar of my Facebook account this morning. Seriously, I just cut and pasted:

We need to talk -

about your home. If you're a SoCal homeowner: it might be the right time to sell. Explore your options while you still have choices.

Wow, if that's not enough to incite negativity in the heart of a homeowner, I don't know what is. "Salma" would be the last realtor I'd go to with that "while you still have choices" crap. Who was her marketing consultant?

I don't have to worry about contacting Salma though. I live in a very cute apartment building that is rattling like an earthquake is going on. Workers are tearing up the street in front of my building because they're going to repave my street. In the rain.

Poor workers!

But at least it's not snow!

Straw Hair

It's Saturday night again. Wasn't I just here a week ago? Funny how it came back around so quickly.

I spent my day at a Los Angeles Unified School District parent leadership training. I'm now president of the School Site Council at my kids' school. I got myself elected to pretty much every other school committee as well.

That means that today I was supposed to be learning about how to be a member of all these committees. That happened somewhat, but what I really came away knowing for sure is that there are some VERY angry parents in this school district. Every time the facilitators presented some information, they'd ask if we had any questions. Without fail, a parent would stand up and launch into a tirade about all the illegal (or legal and wack) stuff some principal is trying to pull.

I get their issues. I truly do. But after two hours of this, I was mentally exhausted. After four hours, my goodie-goodie self was texting my sister and socializing with the lady sitting next to me. After six hours, I felt like bumming a cigarette off of someone and taking up smoking just so I'd have a reason to go outside.

This marvelous day was capped off with me winning a door prize that came wrapped in Star of David wrapping paper. It was a pair of 99 Cent Store candlesticks. Uh huh.

And now I'm home and determined that this will not, I repeat, NOT be another Saturday night of laughing at my email spam. Seriously, it can't be. Especially after I spent Friday night curling my hair up with straws.

Yes, I said straws.

This was yours truly at around 1 am last night.

Yeah, for the uninformed, that's called a "straw set". And I hope it's obvious it's called this because those are drinking straws up in my hair. 72 drinking straws to be exact.

It took me about an hour to put them all in. Then I sat around for eons waiting for my hair to dry. I watched two movies, wrote a friend and by 1:30 in the morning, it still wasn't all dry. The gifted-child in me figured I'd just prop a whole bunch of pillows up and sleep sitting up, like if I was on an airplane.

That worked for awhile. But by 3:30, I finally gave in and laid down on those straws. Ouch! The uncomfortable things we women do for beauty! Believe me, I was so grateful my hair was dry when I got up two hours later.

I'll confess, this straw thing was an impulsive, spur of the moment experiment but I really like it. It was interesting though how today while I was busy socializing during a session, the lady next to me was all, "Girl, your hair is too cute! Where'd you get it done?"

"Um, I did it myself," I replied.

"You did it yourself?" she asked in disbelief.

Her mouth fell open while I nodded proudly and replied, "Yeah, I learned from a YouTube video.

"What! You learned how to sew in some weave from a YouTube video?"

We had about 30 seconds of back and forth, with me saying, "No, really, it's not a weave! It's my hair!" and her saying, "Stop frontin'! That has got to be a weave!"

I thought I was gonna have to let her pull my hair to prove to her that it wasn't a weave, but she finally believed me.

This led to a discussion about hair and black women in general. I told her about my recent decision to not chemically straighten my hair anymore. You can read all about it in an article I wrote about a month ago for Anti-Racist Parent. But in a nutshell, it's because I no longer feel I can teach my kids to be proud of their blackness if I'm changing an inherent part of my black identity, my hair.

She shared how brave she thought I was for this and confessed, "'I can't stand when those naps start growing out of my head! They're so..." She paused and sighed, searching for the right word. And then it finally came.

"Ugly."

She's not alone in feeling this way. Black women are trained to do battle with and hate their hair. Most black women in this country have no idea what the natural texture of their hair feels like. At least that's not the case for me because I've gone back and forth between straightening and not straightening for years.

If you're not black, no one cares if you decide you don't want to straighten your hair to within an inch of it's life, till it feels like straw. But if you are black, wearing your natural hair can become an ideological and political statement. And it's a fashion "don't" according to a (now former) Glamour magazine editor.

But, I'm really feeling my "don't" hair so I'm going to keep rolling with it. In fact, I think I'll sit here and pull on my springy curls while I watch the movie classic, "Network" on PBS. It's a very appropriate Saturday night choice since as far as the haterade on black women's hair, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore."

Popularity

Today was my youngest's fourth birthday. He claims he's still three. In fact, he was furious that I started off his morning by telling him how excited I am that he's now a big four year-old.

His response? "No I'm not. I'm going to be three forever!"

Gosh, is he an LA baby or what? Already lying about his age!

Due to the birthday, I trekked to school this morning with chocolate cupcakes for all the other students in his Pre-K class. Yes, all the trash that we've been walking past for the last week is still there, and even more has been added. Now there's also a half-full discarded shopping cart alongside the cookstove.

Anyway, I normally drop my son off with his teacher at the Pre-K gate. But, because of the cupcakes, I followed the kids to the classroom. That's when I discovered something: My son's the "popular" kid in his class.

It's weird how obvious it is that the other kids think he's all that. When he gets there, they cheer. Everyone wants to sit next to him, stand next to him and wear his Buzz Lightyear t-shirt. After school, other students don't want to leave till they've given him a high five. They ask if they can come over and hang out. They want him to come over to their homes. Their mothers look exasperated over this reluctance to say goodbye to my son.

I think the arrival of the cupcakes just sealed the popularity deal. He's not just popular now. Nope, now he's a rock star in there.

I have never had this experience at school. I've always had a couple close friends at school and that's it. In fact, I don't think I even had friends at school till maybe fourth or fifth grade.

I remember a girl in kindergarten said I did something to her. The teacher, Mrs. Bowman, pulled me into the hallway and she was going to paddle me. She actually had the paddle in her hand, but fortunately, I managed to convince her I was innocent! Yes, being falsely accused was pretty much the extent of my interaction with other kids at that age.

I skipped first grade. I'm one of those gifted kids, so no memories there.

The kids in 2nd and 3rd grade called me Oreo, zebra and salt and pepper because of my being half white and half black. They tried to beat me up on the playground. We clearly weren't friends.

In 4th-6th grade, I had two Anna's as school friends. I went over to their houses every once in awhile. I even spent the night sometimes. And then 7th grade hit and I suddenly wasn't cool anymore. I spent most of 7th grade wishing that I had something to fit into a bra and sitting by myself at lunch.

In fact, I was so unpopular that I remember going to sit down on the gym floor to eat lunch with the other girls from my class. (We had no cafeteria so we ate in the gym.)

All ten or eleven of these girls got really quiet. And then, one by one, they stood up and silently moved to another section of the gym. Once there, they burst into laughter and continued with their lunch.

I was humiliated.

Needless to say, I ate my mother's tofu and cucumber sandwich all by myself for most of the rest of that school year.

In high school, I had a couple of good friends. Sure, there were people who liked me and were friendly. But I was never one of the really cool, popular girls. I was always the chubby, nerdy friend of those girls.

In college, I made a couple of really good friends that are still my friends to this day. And I'm grateful beyond belief for them. By then, I didn't want to be popular. I just wanted to be myself, comfortable with lots of folks but just as comfortable being alone, listening to Vivaldi and reading Anna Karenina.

No, I was never the trendsetter that my youngest son so obviously is. And I wonder if this will continue throughout his life. He's so extroverted, and even at his age, so ready to party at a moments notice. He's magnetic, larger than life. We sometimes joke that he's going to be the president of some frat house at college. Or he's going to be the male version of Oprah Winfrey. One of the two.

What about you? Were you popular in school? How did you deal with your popularity (or lack thereof) as a child?

Wearing Black, Being Black

Yes, I'll be wearing all black tomorrow: Black pants, black shirt, black umbrella if it rains, black eyeliner on my eyes...but I'll skip the black lipstick because I'm not really going for the goth look.

I'm wearing all black in support of the "Jena Six" rally that will be taking place tomorrow in Jena, Louisiana. If you haven't heard of the "Jena Six" by now, Google it and you'll get to read about yet another ridiculous example of racism in the good ole USA. I think about incidents like this every time I hear someone say that my little boys are sooo cute. Yeah, they're cute, but cute won't stop someone from trying to convict black males for some craziness.

Speaking of blackness, today as we were walking home from school, my six year-old says to me, "Mommy, I'm the only black boy in my class."

This is 100% true. One other student is Asian. Everyone else is Latino.

I asked him if someone had said something bad about his skin or hair, and he said, "No."

I told him how if anyone did, he should tell his teacher and let me know so I could whup someone's ass help solve the problem. But he only replied, "How come there aren't any other black kids in my class?"

I know how my son feels. I feel like I've been asking variations of this "why am I the only black person" question my whole life. In most school or work situations I've always been the only black person, or else there was one other black person around. And, in moments like this, as much as I love my neighborhood (despite the drunks that were back again today), I wish there were more black folks around here. Or rather, I wish there were more black folks with school age children around here. The young black hipsters are starting to migrate this way and I see them out in all their childless, boho-chicness.

Folks tell me I should move to Inglewood or Baldwin Hills where I can see black folks the minute I walk out of the door. Plus the schools have greater numbers of black children. I've been told that my child is going to have identity issues if he doesn't go to a school with more black children. That way of thinking assumes that his race should be the primary identity for him, and indeed, for many people, race is their primary identity. But we are all more than the sum of racial politics.

So, I really hope you wear black tomorrow, not just to ask for equality and justice for black folks, but to ask for justice and equality for all of us. We all deserve so much more than what passes as racial equality in this country.

We all need to raise the bar.

School And Society

Yesterday my youngest son officially became involved with one of the most powerful entities in this city, the Los Angeles Unified School District.

It was his first day of Pre-K and he was not too thrilled to be going. He refused to wear the lanyard-style name tag. In fact, he threw it on the ground. I could see tears beginning to well up in his eyes as the teachers told the kids to line up at the Pre-K entrance to the school.

His teacher came over and told him he was going to be okay. She kindly smiled at him and took his hand. His lip trembled a little but he held onto her.

I only let the tears roll down my face when he was safely out of sight. I cried because it's hard to see your baby experiencing such a milestone. And I cried because I worry about what this school system has in store for my little boy, a black male, especially since he has an "artistic" temperament.

Schools don't do too well with black boys with artistic temperaments.

But, I have confidence in his Pre-K teacher. My eldest son had her and she's great. We understand each other and I grilled her two years ago before my eldest entered her room. I know she was initially surprised when I asked her how she would deal with my son being called names or being teased because of his skin color or hair. But she recovered quickly and was open to hearing why I asked. When an incident did happen, she dealt effectively with it. And she was not afraid of my son's blackness and what that means for him in our society. She loved him instead of tolerating him and looking down her nose at him with a sense of superiority.

This is not how all teachers behave. I can tell you without a doubt that bad teachers come in every color. Racist teachers do too. But I've had a whole lot of experience with young white teachers coming in to teach poor children of color.

The things I'd experienced in my personal life and also seen in my own teaching experience gave me a prime opportunity to think about who I was working with. Who were these people coming to teach poor children of color? The majority were young white women who were admirably idealistic. They were eager to teach in low-income communities and change the lives of their students. They believed it was immoral for poor children to not get a decent education.

That belief is, in itself, a noble and wonderful thing. However, many of them were unprepared for the myriad ways race would play a factor in their teaching experiences. There was definitely a palpable desire to believe that race wouldn't be a big issue, even if many of them were afraid that black and Latino students wouldn't accept them because they were white. And they figured the veteran teachers who weren't white wouldn't accept them either.

Most of them had never had a very close friend who was black. I'm talking about a girlfriend they talked with every day. Someone who did the anorexia intervention on them during their sophomore year of college. Someone whose shoulder they cried on when they went through a bad breakup. Someone they were roommates with.

Many had never been to a black person's home. They'd never sung the Black National Anthem or been to an Ebony Fashion Fair Fashion show. Never been to a black beauty shop or smelled the chemicals of hair relaxers.

Of course, they'd read in sociology classes about the black male being an endangered species. Perhaps they'd even gone through an experimental phase where they'd slept with a few black guys at college. If they liked rap music, they believed it gave them the street cred they needed to relate to their students. They didn't stop to think about whether the black boys in their classrooms were being socialized to be 50 Cent. After all, he's a rich guy, and who wants to be Barry Manilow?

Many of these teachers didn't want to think about how little trust black folks have in schools that have failed their families for generations. None had ever thought the historical interactions between black and white women in this country needed to be taken into consideration when dealing with their student's mothers. They'd missed the history lesson on the jealous revenge white wives would take on black female slaves because their white husbands were spending time down at the slave cabins, raping those slaves.

Then they'd complain because when they'd tell mothers that their child had misbehaved, the mother would mistrustfully ask the teacher, "And what did you do to my child?"

They didn't know what was going on when the little black girls in their classrooms wistfully stroked the waist-length hair of the Latina girls. Instead they'd agree with the black girls who'd say to the Latina girls, "Your hair is so pretty."

And when those black girls came to school with hair extension braids, the teachers would ask,"Is that your hair? How did it get so long overnight?"

They'd complain that the black children were the worst behaved children in their classrooms and they didn't understand why those black children were still not achieving academically, despite having them, the awesome and motivated first year teacher.

Some were angry when I'd point out to them that they were treating their black and Latino students unequally. They didn't believe it was true. And then I'd share that when the Latino boy talked out of turn, they'd ignored him. But when the black boy talked out of turn, they'd yelled at him and given him a negative consequence.

"Are you calling me a racist?" They'd say. "Because I'm not a racist."

I'd tell them I was just objectively sharing what I was seeing. I was usually too chicken to say, "Yes, you're a racist." Instead, I'd ask what leadership opportunities they'd given the black student, what positive contact they'd had with the family, what encouraging praise and affirmation they'd given.

They'd just reiterate that they weren't racist. "Liberal" and "socially progressive" were the labels they'd given themselves. After all, who else would come teach in these schools? Who else would take the time for some poor children of color? Sure they were afraid of a black mother whose tough questions would be seen as normal if they were coming from the mouth of a white mother. But that fear wasn't racism, right?

The thing about our world is that teachers aren't alone in their denial. We desperately want to believe that everyone gets treated the same at work, when they're buying a car, when they're looking for housing, when shopping at Macy's, when walking down the street.

And if they don't, it's not racism. It's some sort of personal issues between two people.

Even more, we want to believe that we are not the perpetrators of racism. We all want to believe that racism is for people who from the South, are married to their cousin and are missing teeth. Racism is for people who wear white hoods on the weekend and voted for George Bush.

Yes, my son takes one more step into growing up in Los Angeles, a city where the chance of a 30 year old black male being murdered is 15.9 in 10,000.

And if he was white, it'd be 0.6 in 10,000.

Teachers are a part of that statistic, whether they want to admit it or not. We're all a part of that, whether we want to admit it or not.

"You Wanna Go To Jail Just Like Your Daddy?"

The question echoed down the hallway, causing me to snap out of my self-absorbed musings concerning my engine light coming on this morning and my need to clone myself so I can be two places at once this Saturday.

I observed a trio just ahead of me to my left: A little boy, his mother and his teacher. His mother was obviously not pleased and neither was the teacher. The little boy hung his head and shook it from left to right in response to her rhetorical question.

"Then stop acting up, having me come up here off of my job to deal with you," his mother said.

"Mmm. Hmm," said the teacher. "You better listen to what your momma's telling you. It's the same stuff I've been telling you."

I made eye contact and nodded my head to them, the universal sign of greeting for black folks. I scooted past them and on down the hallway.

His mother's voice continued behind me, echoing in it's harshness and anger, "You wanna be a thug? Huh? You wanna try to act all bad and hard? What you think that's gonna get you?"

He didn't say anything but the teacher chimed in, "I tell him that every day. He knows that's not how he's supposed to act."

From his size and the location of the classroom, this boy was probably six years old, either in kindergarten or first grade. This is a scene I've witnessed all too many times over the past eight years. A child misbehaves in school and the conversation isn't about, "You might fall in with the wrong crowd." It automatically jumps to this place of heightened seriousness: prison.

Why are we talking about prison instead of college? I know the answer to that question, of course. There is no real expectation that this boy will go to college. I didn't hear his teacher say, "You are so smart that I think I must need to challenge you more so you don't misbehave in class." No, she'd never say that.

His mom, well, her fear is voiced for anyone strolling the hall to hear. She's probably seen her fears become reality all too frequently in her neighborhood, one of the poorest in Los Angeles.

Of course, I can get up on my soap-box because I don't live there. I get in my car and drive home everyday. My own kindergartener is determined to go to Notre Dame. He's debating whether he should be a pediatrician or a scientist. His teacher showers compliments on him about his behavior and his academic prowess and I'd be ready to sue if I saw otherwise.

I wish this little boy had the same.