The holidays are an emotional time -- for our kids, I'd say it's mostly good emotions, except for having to listen to me say that Santa can still change his mind and leave a lump of coal in their stockings if they don't clean their rooms. For me, it is mostly good, too, but the holidays have become more melancholy as the years, and loved ones, have passed. The Christmas holiday was a special favorite of my late mother-in-law's, and I know that my husband's annual desire to buy a fresh-cut tree stems in large part from his childhood memories of their house -- Laila's house -- decked out it all its holiday glory. The family was never very religious, so theirs was a Christmas celebration in the American pop-culture sense, where it is okay to be happy and joyful, even if the "true meaning" of the holiday is heavily filtered, at best. She used to say that "Christmas is for the kids," so it is always bittersweet to watch our kids -- two of the four grandchildren she never met -- enjoying her favorite holiday.
It is sad, but fitting, that her birthday and the day she passed are bookends to Christmas. I always think of her on her birthday in mid-December, and immediately feel inadequate as I look around at my barely-decorated house and think about my yet-to-be-written Christmas shopping list. After the mad scramble of Christmas and New Year's, I am always reminded of her on the anniversary of the day she passed, remembering the sadness that filled the house, Laila's house, on that day.
And, inevitably, when I think of her passing, I think about her last Christmas with us, and all the Christmases she gave to her family over the years, and how she managed to make the holiday special. Happier times. I suppose this is one of the intangibles of the holidays: the imprint left by these occasions are somehow magnified over time. As the number of people we lose grows, the positive memories of these special times seem to expand to fill that void. Lai's Christmas day festivities, topped off by Christmas dinner on fine china. Memories of "Dad," my father-in-law, making his special signature Christmas morning dish -- the appropriately named, "Special" -- and the family calendars he would distribute, each child's, grandchild's, aunt's, uncle's, cousin's, son-in-law's, daughter-in-law's, and grandparent's birthday written in by hand. Memories of my father, always happiest in his element, surrounded by his brothers and their families, holidays filled with card games, mah jong and plenty of kids running around. Falling asleep in his lap after having too much fun with my cousins, and being carried off and tucked into bed.
If we are lucky, it is these happier holiday memories that endure -- and, hopefully, we manage to create some of these for our kids, too. Happy holidays, everybody.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
The "N" Word
I remember when our babysitter, Katy, reported to me that my daughter had told her that one of our books-on-tape had a bad word in it -- the "N-word" -- but we still listened to it anyway, even though mommy told them they could not use the word. I cringed. I had wondered when this would happen. When I would be exposed for allowing my children to listen to a tape that included the "N-word": nincompoop. Even though I used the word as I sang along with the Oompa Loompas as they described the fate of poor Augustus Gloop, I had admonished the kids that name-calling was not allowed, and they should especially not call each other nincompoop. I explained to Katy, who laughed, since she had already gotten my daughter to confide in her and tell her what the "N-word" was, at least in our household.
I am not sure when we had the conversation about the "N-word," the "J-word," the "C-word" and other racial epithets, but both of my children are well aware of these words now, and how these words have been used as instruments of hate and divisiveness over decades and decades of American history. Which is a good thing, since we were faced with a particularly ugly reminder about this issue on the eve of the election of Barack Obama as president.
On November 3rd, somebody spray painted the real N-word on the door of an African American teacher at one of our city's elementary schools. Even though the police had been called in, I could find no news reports about the incident until after the school district decided to inform the community about what had happened in an emailed letter dated November 21:
I am not sure when we had the conversation about the "N-word," the "J-word," the "C-word" and other racial epithets, but both of my children are well aware of these words now, and how these words have been used as instruments of hate and divisiveness over decades and decades of American history. Which is a good thing, since we were faced with a particularly ugly reminder about this issue on the eve of the election of Barack Obama as president.
On November 3rd, somebody spray painted the real N-word on the door of an African American teacher at one of our city's elementary schools. Even though the police had been called in, I could find no news reports about the incident until after the school district decided to inform the community about what had happened in an emailed letter dated November 21:
Dear Families of Piedmont Students:
On November 3rd, the day before the national election, a hate crime was perpetrated upon one of our teachers at Havens Elementary School. Specifically, a racial epithet was written on the wall outside of the teacher's office. To respect the victim's privacy, this information was not shared until now. A police report was filed within the hour, and the District is continuing to investigate. Although the offending word was removed within 20 minutes of being reported, the effects of this crime continue to reverberate; this event has hurt our community.
The Piedmont Unified School District will not allow the benign acceptance of hate crimes. In the coming weeks, we will examine how we as a District and community can work together to strengthen our collective response to hate crimes in Piedmont. The Appreciating Diversity Committee has already met to support this work and discuss with us a course of action. We ask for your input and your active participation in our work ahead. On behalf of the District, though saddened by this incident, I look forward to working together to move us forward in a positive way.
Sincerely,
Constance Hubbard
Superintendent
To date, this is the only official information we have been given about the incident. There was scant coverage of the incident in our local papers; you can read one online news account here.
After we returned from Thanksgiving break, information slowly trickled through the community that the perpetrators were rumored to be three seventh grade boys from the middle school. Their identities -- although kept hush hush by the school district -- were pretty well known within the school, since all three boys were suspended. Those five days may have seemed long to the individuals involved, but I was taken aback when I realized that this was the extent of their suspension.
I attended the school board meeting last night, with my children, to hear the presentation by the board and a handful of speakers on this topic. I expected to hear some anonymous details about what the punishment was for these boys, whether the police were involved, etc. Unfortunately, there was merely a vague statement about working with the victim in determining the consequences for the perpetrators of this hate crime, and that was about it. There was talk about "formulating policy" to deal with such incidences in the future. All of this is well and good, and definitely necessary -- but why the shroud of secrecy? Shouldn't the community at least be informed that the perpetrators have been caught and what their punishment was?
The only fact that made me feel better about this is that I learned through my many discussions with other parents that the five-day suspension seems to be the maximum sentence that is given out around here, even for the most serious infraction. Even if you stab somebody in wood shop. Or stalk another child and assault him on the way home. After you are caught and found guilty of such crimes in Piedmont, you serve your five-day suspension, and you are back at school, good to go. As if nothing happened. Good for the perpetrators, not so good for the victim/classmate in the cases of the stabbing and assault. At least the perpetrators in the hate crime incident are students on a different school site, so the targeted teacher does not have to run into them on a daily basis.
When I first heard that the rumored perpetrators were children that I knew, I was in shock. But even more shocking has been the silence around this incident, the suppression of information that might lead to a reaction from the community at large. As one parent said to me, "In many other communities, an incident like this would have led to loud outrage." Definitely not the case here. With virtually no information about the incident, the district has managed to muffle what little reaction there has been, or might have been.
The perpetrators are back at school now. As if nothing happened.
After we returned from Thanksgiving break, information slowly trickled through the community that the perpetrators were rumored to be three seventh grade boys from the middle school. Their identities -- although kept hush hush by the school district -- were pretty well known within the school, since all three boys were suspended. Those five days may have seemed long to the individuals involved, but I was taken aback when I realized that this was the extent of their suspension.
I attended the school board meeting last night, with my children, to hear the presentation by the board and a handful of speakers on this topic. I expected to hear some anonymous details about what the punishment was for these boys, whether the police were involved, etc. Unfortunately, there was merely a vague statement about working with the victim in determining the consequences for the perpetrators of this hate crime, and that was about it. There was talk about "formulating policy" to deal with such incidences in the future. All of this is well and good, and definitely necessary -- but why the shroud of secrecy? Shouldn't the community at least be informed that the perpetrators have been caught and what their punishment was?
The only fact that made me feel better about this is that I learned through my many discussions with other parents that the five-day suspension seems to be the maximum sentence that is given out around here, even for the most serious infraction. Even if you stab somebody in wood shop. Or stalk another child and assault him on the way home. After you are caught and found guilty of such crimes in Piedmont, you serve your five-day suspension, and you are back at school, good to go. As if nothing happened. Good for the perpetrators, not so good for the victim/classmate in the cases of the stabbing and assault. At least the perpetrators in the hate crime incident are students on a different school site, so the targeted teacher does not have to run into them on a daily basis.
When I first heard that the rumored perpetrators were children that I knew, I was in shock. But even more shocking has been the silence around this incident, the suppression of information that might lead to a reaction from the community at large. As one parent said to me, "In many other communities, an incident like this would have led to loud outrage." Definitely not the case here. With virtually no information about the incident, the district has managed to muffle what little reaction there has been, or might have been.
The perpetrators are back at school now. As if nothing happened.
UPDATE: 12 December 1008 -- I attended a middle school board meeting today, and was pleased that the principal started out the meeting with a discussion of this incident. Based on the reaction of the parents in the room, many of them were not aware that the perpetrators were from their child's school, and that they had already returned to school. When I asked about the length of the suspension, the administrator referred to a "maximum" suspension of five days, which I subsequently found in the California Education Code. (At least I now know that there is some basis for the five day limit. However, based on the Education Code, it seems that there is also some discretion in applying a "suspension" versus suspending a child pending possible expulsion, where a child could feasibly be suspended for longer than five days and ultimately returned to the school without being expelled.) In this case, it seems that a longer suspension-pending-expulsion-hearing might have been in the best interest of the perpetrators, who were out of school just long enough for kids to figure out who they were -- and then returned to school to face their peers. The principal reported that the perpetrators had been subjected to some verbal harassment, and that this was being dealt with through a mediation that was set for that morning. It was encouraging to see that the principal was sensitive to the fact that some students would feel some animosity towards the perpetrators, and had taken efforts to stop the escalation of this sentiment. Some parents in the meeting seemed surprised at the idea that other students would harbor ill will towards the perpetrators; as if all the kids should be expected to act as if nothing had happened. When I raised the issue of whether the perception that perpetrators' suspension was rather brief fed into the frustrations felt by students and the broader community, the response of other parents in the room reflected the sentiment that such "details" should not matter now, that this issue is over and done with, just a prank that the perpetrators didn't really understand, and what we need to do now is immediately move on and "heal" the community. Apparently, for some, there is no connection between the details and the processing of the issues at hand.
It will be interesting to see how we progress. On the one hand, there were many voices who spoke and said all the right things, and the school seems to be taking a pro-active stance to prevent this from becoming a bigger issue than it already is. However, at the same time, there seemed to be more emphasis on encouraging compassion for the perpetrators and fearing for their safety, rather than trying to understand, validate or acknowledge the animosity felt towards them because of what they did.
Perhaps, in this community, it is more important to show compassion towards boys -- who will be boys -- rather than actually attempting to understand the wounds from which we are trying to heal.
UPDATE: I was waiting to post quotes from local press articles that I assumed would be printed after the meeting, giving more details about what had happened. The Piedmonter, one of our two local newspapers, stated in an article on December 19, 2008: "[t]hree 12-year old Piedmont boys are waiting to learn their punishment for spray-painting the 'N' word across a Havens Elementary School wall." The timing was interesting, since we know the boys had already returned from their suspensions at that point. However, I am grateful to The Piedmonter for treating this issue as newsworthy, and at least attempting to provide some follow-up information regarding the perpetrators. It is more information than we have received from the school district or any other local paper.
UPDATE: I was waiting to post quotes from local press articles that I assumed would be printed after the meeting, giving more details about what had happened. The Piedmonter, one of our two local newspapers, stated in an article on December 19, 2008: "[t]hree 12-year old Piedmont boys are waiting to learn their punishment for spray-painting the 'N' word across a Havens Elementary School wall." The timing was interesting, since we know the boys had already returned from their suspensions at that point. However, I am grateful to The Piedmonter for treating this issue as newsworthy, and at least attempting to provide some follow-up information regarding the perpetrators. It is more information than we have received from the school district or any other local paper.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)