The myth of the magical teacher: or, why I am putting in LESS effort today

I don't do it often, but I complained about a kid on Facebook today. I got a lot of sympathy for me, and one very sympathetic response to the kid. This friend suggested that he probably had a lot of disadvantages (true) and could benefit from a home visit (perhaps) and that I could (I'm sure she meant this jokingly) take him in.

Sigh.

I thought of the movie Freedom Writers, which I watched with my students for the first time last year. The teacher in it goes to great lengths to help a group of troubled kids at a troubled school. She gets a second job to afford books, and then a third job to afford field trips. She calls in favors. Her marriage breaks up. She goes to their houses, finds them on the streets, etc. It was moving. When we finished watching, the kids asked, "Is she still a teacher?" I told them I'd look it up, but in my heart, I already knew the answer: no. You can't put that much effort in and continue to do the job for thirty years. I was right: she taught for exactly four years.

Jaime Escalante, hero of the movie Stand and Deliver, taught for longer, about 18 years, although perhaps not as heroically as in the movie. Friends who had his class at Hiram Johnson all said he was nothing special -- in fact, they used to sneak out after attendance, and he apparently never noticed.

Mr. Holland's Opus depicts the good he did for his students at the expense of his relationship with his family.

Every once in a while, someone shares a meme about how much teachers actually work.

This is the one I saw most recently. And I think it's kind of ridiculous. Like, do most teachers really spend 4 weeks (20 8-hour days) on campus in the summer before school starts? Because I sure as hell don't. I mean, I might spend several hours here and there lesson-planning, communicating with colleagues, making copies, refining my syllabus, organizing my room, etc., but like... maybe 4-5 hours at a stretch, you know? Not full-time. Do I go to trainings? Yeah, but for 3-4 days. And the rest of the time, I'm taking my kid to the zoo. 

And 3-5 hours every night of meetings, phone calls, grading, planning, etc.? Uh... no. More like 40 minutes of it at school, then at most, an hour at home. There are variations on a theme -- if I have a lot of essays, I might spend 90 minutes at home on them for a whole week straight. Then the next week, I might not do a damned thing but read the book I've assigned my kids. 

Now some of my extra work comes in other places -- I work through lunch a lot of the time, for example. 

Maybe the above graphic is true for some teachers, though. I sure as hell hope they're single, or childless or empty-nesters or something. Because I have a LIFE. Twelve to fourteen hours a day, as this chart suggests, is INSANE. That would mean going to work at 7:30 and stopping working at 7:30 pm to, I don't know, eat? Do these crazy fuckers eat? Do they sleep? Do they go to the gym? When do they shop for groceries? How do they keep up with the Kardashians? 

You may already know that 40-50% of new teachers don't make it to 5 years. 15.7 percent of teachers quit every year, and 40% who pursue teaching degrees never enter the classroom.* There are almost 3 million results on Google for "teacher burnout." 

What would happen if I gave this job my all? My 110%? What would happen to my home, my kid, my marriage? Could I save these students? Could I drag them out of poverty and illiteracy and abusive homes and drug- and gang- infested neighborhoods and show them the light and change their whole lives? 

Right now, I do my best to teach the kids how to write well, how to communicate, how to understand what they read, how to be persuasive, how to recognize bias, how to tell what sources are worth using, how to synthesize information and respond to different points of view. All the English stuff. And then at the end of the year, when my seniors are heading off into the world, I sneak in some lessons that aren't in my purview. I teach them about payday loans and interest rates, and I teach them about pyramid schemes and why not to work for Cutco or Herbalife, and I teach them about consent and the variety of people they'll run into in the world, and I teach them what to do if they get pulled over when driving, and I tell them what jury duty is like, and I encourage them to join all the clubs and take advantage of the movies and the lectures, and I teach them how to dress for an interview, how to shake hands, how to maintain eye contact, and to turn their phones off before they even get in the lobby. 

I think I could sacrifice my personal happiness, my family life, and my sanity, and perhaps I could be a savior for a certain number of students. Let's go with a high number of 25 per year.  I could probably swing that for as much as five years before needing to quit and do something easier. That's 125 students. Or I could help all my kids, about 115 per year, learn how to get jobs and not sell Herbalife. And I can do that for about three decades. That's 3500 students at no personal cost to me. 

When I weigh those options with the greater good in mind, I always end up with me teaching for 30 years. Maybe I'm nobody's savior. Maybe I'm nobody's miracle cure. But I'm a good teacher, I'm a good mom, and I'm a good wife. And I'm on track to be at this for a couple thousand students longer. 

So no, I'm not taking this kid in. I'm going to do exactly what I've been doing: trying to show him how to take personal responsibility. Giving him make-up work when he gets himself suspended. Working gently with his emotional issues so that he knows he's safe with me and welcome in my classroom. Smiling and saying hi in the hall even when he's been an absolute butthead earlier in the day. Correcting his work so that he's doing his personal best, but not setting the bar so high that he's frustrated and gives up. Teaching him how to read, write, communicate. And hopefully keeping him out of the Herbalife business. And out of jail. 

Today, I'm not making phone calls. I'm not answering emails. I have to do some grading later, after Z goes to bed, but right now, I'm playing Monster High with her, and I'm having fun doing it. Except for that this wig is so itchy! (We get very into character.)

*http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/10/why-do-teachers-quit/280699/  

Science is real… and I just got my flu shot!

I don't know why I bother. I saw this image on a friend's Facebook page the other day, and I decided to answer the question. And then I got involved.

The answer, of course, is that I'm not concerned about MY vaccinated kid. I'm concerned about the immune-compromised, the very young, and those who can't be vaccinated. I'm sort of concerned for your kids, even though that's more your business than mine. I mean, if you want to get pertussis, go nuts, but I am a little sad if your argument is "people used to get whooping cough all the time -- it's not that bad!" 

And of course, vaccines aren't 100% effective*. Duh. I mean, sometimes you get the flu shot and then get the flu. But huge amounts of research show that you get it less often and less severely. Now go read this. What it says is that in countries with high rates of vaccinations, they have low rates of pertussis. If bunches of people get vaccinations, fewer people get pertussis. And it's not that bad… for you. But for kids under 6 months old, it can be deadly. 

The thing is, so many of the people who advocate for not vaccinating take this "educate yourself!" approach. And I actually have, and continue to. The overwhelming evidence is that although there are some rare cases of negative side effects of vaccines, and although vaccines aren't 100% effective, they have helped to wipe out many diseases, some of them fatal. I mean, if you're my age or older, you probably met some people living with the after-effects of polio. We don't have that anymore. 

I know I'm probably somewhat more of a critical thinker than many, but I'm not exceptional by any means, and it just drives me nuts the way people torture logic. 

The cartoon above, for example, is kind of a straw man fallacy. It attacks an argument you're not making.

The one I hear about keeping kids healthy through healthy diets is called a false choice: it makes it seem like you either get your kids vaccinated, then hook up the chicken-nugget feeding tube, or make them slow-cooked gluten-free broth and ensure their continued health that way. You can do both. Nothing wrong with increasing their immune response via a healthy lifestyle. 

I also see this all the time: "Well, I got the flu shot, and I got sick anyway!" or "My nephew got vaccinated, and then he was diagnosed with autism!" This is called anecdotal evidence. And it's usually crappy. But I feel like we mostly, as a society, recognize that it's crappy ("They say smoking is bad, but my grandpa smoked a pack a day until he was hit by a bus when he was 95.") But not the people making these arguments. Someone in the argument I managed to get myself into said,  "I didn't realize personal experience wasn't valid according to your statistics." But it isn't. Frankly, my personal experience is that I always get the flu shot and hardly ever get sick. But you wouldn't take that as gospel either, because it's not science… it's just this thing that I said.

And the following argument I'm going to make in favor of science doesn't invalidate the fact that I'm a skeptic, but there are certain things that satisfy my skepticism.

So… I am NOT a scientist. I'm not even that good at science. And I understand and recognize that about myself. What I do know is that science tends to use large samples, tends to control for variables, tends to test and experiment and re-test to get the same results. And when someone is pretty sure their science is legit, they write a paper in which they describe their methods so that other people can examine or re-create them, and then several other science people have to read it and agree that it's legit before it gets published. And even then, lots of other scientists are anxious to publish, so they try to tear it apart or address things that that study didn't address, or take a different spin on it, until there are hella pieces of research out there to read.**

So when you go read that research, and the VAST (like, about eleventy-billion to one) majority of those articles say "Yeah, vaccines are helpful," then my skepticism is alleviated somewhat.

But one has to be thorough, right? So I went looking for the other point of view. I searched. I followed footnotes and links and made a number of slightly-differently-worded searches, and what I found was one or two studies that said, "Well, it's possible that vaccines might cause this bad effect. We can't exactly rule it out. But since they are so overwhelmingly positive, our overall view is that you should probably still get them."

But the anti-vaccine people will argue with you all day. They have a gut feeling. They harken back to our ancestors. They think the decline in disease is due to better sanitation, not vaccines. And they have web sites! Their web sites are, by and large, selling something, but no matter. They have a feeling. They have thoroughly researched both sides (they are just unable, at the moment, to show you the research that supports them). And they made a choice.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson said, "the good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it." So I still can't figure out how reasonable people can look at mountains of evidence in favor of vaccines and a few woo-woo paranoiac sites with no evidence and feel as though they've considered both sides and come to the decision that's right for them.

My guess is, either they didn't really look at both sides -- they've simply allowed a few cult-of-personality types to tell them what to believe -- or they're not actually reasonable people. Or maybe both.

Because longitudinal studies that include hundreds of thousands of people and "this one time at band camp" stories are just not equivalent.

Now let me finish by saying that this isn't an argument in favor of mandatory vaccinations. I still think you can make your choice -- it's just a bad choice, based on bad evidence. And if you believe that woo is the same as science, then I've got news for you. 


*Neither is birth control, but many of us have used it to great effect.
** A great example of this process is the infamous Wakefield study linking vaccines to autism. It was published, but then a WHOLE bunch of other scientists rebutted it, and then the researchers who worked with him wanted their names removed from it, and ultimately he lost his medical license over it. Of course, that was the ONLY study that showed a link between vaccines and autism, and yet 18% of the population believes there's a definite link, and 30% more just aren't sure.

Happy New Year!

I guess this has become something of a tradition!

January: 

February:

March:

April:

May: 

June: 

July:

August:

September: 

October: 

November:

December:

Happy fun times in San Francisco and Santa Cruz

"Man, this has been the best day!"
"Good, maybe now you'll finally have a happy blog post to write."
"Haven't I written any happy ones lately?"
"No! Nothing for months and months."

I reviewed it myself later. I suppose, except for the Christmas music one, that he's quite right. It's not that it's been a bad year. In fact, lots of things have been very good. Obviously, there have been some genuine down sides, too, but overall, really I have a great life that I'm exceptionally grateful for. But as with many of my friends, much of my social media sharing has moved to Facebook. And Facebook is good for sharing positive, quick things. "Hey look, we are at the nature center and the sun is shining!"  No one wants long-form gushing, right? And second, when I feel those political rants a-comin', I realize I should probably restrict them to you: mostly friends and family, and a few strangers. But strangers are easier than acquaintances. If a stranger thinks I'm too wacko-liberal, they quit reading (or read in a "get a load of this" way), but if an acquiantance does... Awkward!

Which has had the effect, overall, of turning this into a sinkhole of ranting.

But no more! (Or at least, not today.)

This was a brilliant weekend, and I am going to bask in its glory, reliving it by writing it.

First, we went to San Francisco. Properly, we barely went to San Francisco: we went to the Exploratorium. If you've never been, imagine a museum of science and technology where you're invited to touch and manipulate everything. The old one was at the Palace of Fine Arts, which is a gorgeous building, but in order to expand, it has moved to piers 15 and 17 on the Embarcadero. The downside was that there were about a million people there, and the line stretched for about a quarter mile (I found an accidental and mostly ethical way to skip it that will never work again). Honestly, I love watching Z explore things, but I could easily see spending 6 or so hours there all by myself. We played with magnets, built rube Goldberg devices, stood in a slowly turning structure and a camera obscura, watched beetles eating a dead rat, smelled things, looked at optical illusions, experimented with sound, spun wheels, built motors... It was awesome.

But we had other destinations ahead! After some GPS-related difficulty getting out of town, we hit pretty good traffic towards Santa Cruz. We checked into the hotel and walked to Saturn Cafe. We headed back to the hotel and started to change into our bathing suits (Z has talked of little else but getting into the hot tub here since we first booked the trip), when I slapped my hand to my open mouth. "You didn't!" "I forgot her suit!" With not too much difficulty, we convinced Z to draw and watch cartoons until bed.

On Saturday morning, we went to Cafe Brasil. I think Sweetie and I look as forward to that as almost anything. We both order gallo pinto, a rice and bean dish with eggs and a vinegary sauce, plus fried plantains. Z had a massive pancake.

We drove to the Seymour Marine Science Center and parked outside the gates. There's a nice walk to be had, and we were a little early. We walked to the cliff edge and watched some surfers, and slowly wound our way to the center, where we stood looking out at the ocean. Sweetie spotted an otter, and we watched him for a long time.

Inside Seymour, Z completed a scavenger hunt at record speed (we think the idea was to get people to actually look around, but Z took it as a timed challenge), then did some puzzles, almost touched the swell shark (she gets closer every time), and touched a few things in the starfish-and-whatnot tank.

After that, we went back downtown, this time for a longer visit. The shops on Pacific avenue have changed a lot, and the small, independently owned joints are being encroached upon by the Gap, the Urban Outfitters, the American Apparel... But they're still surviving, many of them. The book shop, the used bookstore. Palace Art, the stationery store, the sock shop, the lingerie store, a comic shop... We walked around quite a bit, and Z and I got Jamba Juice for lunch. I looked in several surf and outdoor-type shops for a bathing suit for Z, and finally found one in the Gap. It is a bikini, but I relented and she loves it. After a long shopping trip (during which many books and cards are acquired!), we returned to the hotel to swim in the pool.

It's heated to about 80, so not uncomfortable even though it's only about 70 outside, and there's no sun on the pool area. We also enjoy the hot tub.

For dinner, we have mediocre Mexican food. We've never had great luck finding restaurants we like for dinner. Breakfast? Hell yes! Lunch? Many fine, casual options. Dinner? Mainly just Saturn.

But after dinner, we stop for a scoop of Marianne's ice cream. Sweetie was skeptical of the long line, but I forced him to come in, and I think we were all pleased. I had Mexican chocolate, he had mandarin chocolate, and Z had rainbow sherbet.

On Sunday, we had a lighter breakfast - pastries and bread at the French bakery. We drove back to the hotel, then walked downtown for a few things we had missed before (mainly comics), and on the way back, hit the Trader Joe's for picnic lunch fixings.

We took our lunch and took a long drive down West Cliff to Natural Bridges state beach. We stopped briefly at the visitor center, which was packed with people wanting to see the butterflies, and then had our picnic. We walked down to the beach and I spread out a blanket and Sweetie and Z disappeared. I read. Then I tried to nap. Then I read some more. They were gone a long time! Apparently, they were on a voyage of discovery, and had walked almost all the way back to the Marine Center! We fooled around on the beach as you do, kicking feet in the waves, making little sand castles, and when we'd been in the sun for a couple hours and Z was thoroughly wet and sandy, we walked back toward the butterflies.

They overwinter at this park, and they're only active when it's above 65 degrees, which it was today! There are a whole bunch of monarchs that chill in the eucalyptus trees, and they flutter and fly about above the heads of the crowd. It's marvelous.

We came back to the hotel for another swim, and then we had a fancy dinner at the hotel restaurant, Solaire. It was mostly lovely, although I didn't care for the gnocchi as much as I have elsewhere. And now we're back in the comfortable beds, having enjoyed a treat from Donnelly's Chocolate (yum!), and Z is sleeping soundly.

Tomorrow we leave, and Sweetie and I both just realized that eventually, we have to go back to work. But not right away. And the sunshine and the ocean have been just shy of miraculous. 70 degrees in December? Thank you, forces of good. Or possibly global climate change.

Other notes: Z has taken up comic reading in a big way. She will stay engrossed in a comic, not even hearing our questions, and then pop up to tell us, "Mom! An artist wanted to make his painting heat up, and Hot Stuff took him too literally and set the painting on fire!" "Dad, Richie Rich was going to give his friend a gift, and she said she couldn't take one that was so lavish, so he said it only cost a quarter, but he meant it cost a quarter of a million!"  It's really fun to see her reading things that she has exclusive access to. Like, we're not reading it along with her, so she tells us about it if she chooses to. It has also made her a much better car traveler. I haven't heard "when are we going to get there?" once.

I won't go into great detail, but one of the things that's great about my and Sweetie's relationship is that we crack each other up. Yesterday, we saw a sign for Rexford wines, and we invented a character called Rexford Wentworth the Fourth (or sometimes Rexford Wentforth the Third or Rexforth Wentworthingtonford), a British-accented, mildly stupid, insensitive pun-lover of the upper class. We've been trading off Rexford-isms all weekend, usually when Z is engrossed in a book. It is so good to have someone to be irresponsibly goofy and sometimes off-color with. I'm still crazy in love with this goofball.

My top ten Christmas songs

I'm not a religious person. I don't know whether I'm an atheist or agnostic, exactly, but it's something like with aliens: I don't really believe they're out there, but hey, it's a big universe, so… meh, could be.

That said, culturally I participate in a couple of Christian holidays, and Christmas is my favorite!! I put up a tree, I put up house lights, I wear Christmas socks, and I bake while wearing a Christmas apron, listening to Christmas music and utilizing Christmas potholders. I think Christmas is just wonderful!

I am crazy about Christmas music, too. I've been thinking about doing this list, and I know in advance it will be hard to narrow it down to ten, but I'll work at it!

Bowie and Crosby Little Drummer Boy
This is hard to justify: It's schlocky and schmaltzy (and that's a lot of Yiddish to describe a Christmas song!), and apparently Bowie was kind of a dick when recording it, and the video version is awkward… and NONE of that makes me love it less. First, I like the original song. It's about a kid who has nothing to give to the baby Jesus, so he does the only thing he can for him. Giving all you have when you have nothing is just about the most beautiful of the Christmas morals, and that song has always gotten to me. And even though Bowie's "Peace on Earth, can it be" vocals over the top kind of bastardize the original song, I don't mind. I like his voice, I like the way their voices blend, and I actually think it works overall.

Do You Hear What I Hear
There's something I like about the little shepherd boy and the little drummer boy both. I like the way the songs are about the ripple effect of Jesus' birth on regular old people. These are just poor kids, and I like the way the songs foreground them. In fact, I like the last verse, "Said the mighty king to the people everywhere; listen to what I say!" the least. For every other verse, it's a question to another; do you hear? Do you see? Do you know? And the mighty king is all "Listen to me! Pay attention to me! I'm a king!" But then I forgive him, because he follows it up with "Pray for peace, people everywhere," which is the kind of sentiment I can get behind. Plus, when this song is good, it's very good, with lovely light harmonies and junk.

Walking In A Winter Wonderland
In general, I prefer religious music to secular. I think it's all that minor-key seriousness. And so many secular songs are about crappy subjects, particularly like how Santa is stalking you, or you want to whore it up with the fat man. That's weird. But I find Walking in a Winter Wonderland charming. You know what I love about it so much? That stupid snowman that they're going to pretend is Parson Brown. And the conspiring. I love a good conspiracy by the hearth.

Fairytale of New York
This song by the Pogues didn't come to my attention until a few years ago, and it's about homesickness and regret and dreams vs. reality and it's SO sad, but a little hopeful, too. And I love maudlin drunk, black-humored Irish songs. Which is why I picked the next one as well.

St. Stephen's Day Murders
This is on my all-time favorite Christmas album. I own a lot of Christmas music (if I just hit "play" and let it go, we could listen for over 8 hours), and I listen to The Chieftans' "The Bells of Dublin" at least twice as much as any other album I play. All  23 tracks are brilliant, but this one has Elvis Costello, murders, grumpiness, and lilting Irish pipes, and I'm just SO into it.

The Cherry Tree Carol
I like this one because it tells a whole little story: Mary and Joseph got married. One day, she asked him to gather her some cherries, "for I am with child." And he gets mad, because obviously! And there's this real Maury Povich moment where he says "Let the father of the child gather cherries for thee!" But then the baby Jesus speaks from her womb (okay, that part is creepy) and a cherry tree branch bends down to Mary's hand. It's just a tiny miracle and a sweet personal moment, and no towering angels spake from on high or anything. A pregnant lady wants some cherries. It's sweet. (This version by Sting isn't my favorite -- I like the Peter, Paul and Mary version. Mary Travers has a knockout voice.)

Linus and Lucy
The vast majority of the other songs on the Vince Guaraldi Trio are jazzy piano arrangements of traditional Christmas songs. This original composition is the one that pops into my head when I think of A Charlie Brown Christmas, however. And it's pretty hard to think of that Christmas special without feeling some serious warm fuzzes.

We Three Kings
Talk about your dark, melancholy, minor-key motherfuckers. It's all, "Hey, we're here to bring you some presents. This one symbolizes death!" (I'm serious: "Myrrh is mine: its bitter perfume/ breathes a life of gathering gloom. Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying/ sealed in the stone cold tomb.") You are literally waiting with bated breath for an Easter palate cleanser. Some sort of springtime, "Hey, it's cool, he got resurrected!" song. And yet that repeated "guide us to thy perfect light" line is a plea, a lament, and a hopeful belief all wrapped up in one. Lovely.

2000 Miles
Yeah, it's another non-traditional, secular, pop song. What of it? Much like the Fairytale of New York, this song recognizes that Christmas is a little sad, too -- for the people who are far away from their loved ones, for the people who feel lonely for other reasons, for the people whose holidays are less light after a loss... And I just can't get enough of Chrissie Hynde's voice.

O Holy Night
This song, performed half-way well, can make me cry. It's the "Fall on your knees" part. The song just builds and builds and builds until you finally get to that beautiful, climactic moment (it actually keeps building until "O night divine," but that high point really starts at "fall on your knees"). It's so suspenseful, so poignant, and so perfect.

There are several more that should make honorable mention, but this will do. Merry Christmas, or whatever you celebrate, if anything. 

Raising the minimum wage

is fair and just and I cannot BELIEVE there's even a debate about this. I hardly ever yell at the radio DJs anymore (and it wasn't the morning morons, either), but seriously, it was SO STUPID.

"I lived on minimum wage when it was $4.25!! And these jerks want $15 an hour?!"

Hey, guess what you're leaving out? That your rent was $325 and gas was $1.10 a gallon. Apartments now are $1000 a month and gas is $3.50 a gallon. Let me do some quick math on my fingers… OH.

"If these losers want a better wage, go get a better job!"

10% unemployment rate in this town, suckers. There IS no better job.

"They can work their way up like everyone else does. If you want better pay, work your way up to manager!"

Because obviously those positions are plentiful and everyone is equally able to get those jobs!

"I can't believe MacDonald's regional managers make more than I do!"

Is that right, Mr. 23-hours-a-week* and dropped out of school in 7th grade? (Yes, really.) Did you consider that they probably supervise a couple hundred people?

"If a single person with a kid can't raise a kid on one income, they shouldn't have had a kid!"

I suspect you didn't MEAN to be a misogynist when this popped out of your face hole, but 72% of single parents are mothers, and many of them have little choice in the matter.

"Why can't they live on what they make?"

Could you live on $10,000 a year? That's what most "crew members" make. Even if you're full time (and ask yourself how many McDonalds' employees are getting 40 hours), the company itself suggests that you take on a second job of about 32 hours to make ends meet.  Here's what a living wage looks like: In my city in California, a single parent (of one child) would need about $54k to get by with a modest living. That's about twice the poverty level. It's about five times as much as a shift manager at McDonald's makes.

"If you can't make it, then get a second job!"

Many people do. But should you have to work 72 hours a week to have shelter and food? Really?

"If they raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, that's double. The price of a Big Mac will double like THAT."

Well… McDonald's may use that as an excuse to raise prices, but obviously not all of their budget goes to salaries, and if they charged $8 for a burger, no one would buy it. Something between five cents and 68 cents is more likely.

A caller actually called in and said, "I was making a lot of money in my field living in San Francisco. Then I got laid off and divorced, and now I'm a highly skilled worker making $9 an hour." I THOUGHT the next thing she was going to say was how absolutely ridiculous that is, and how impossible it is to live on that wage… "And if I'm only making $9, why should fast food workers make $10 an hour? That's ridiculous!"

Oh, honey. First of all, if the minimum wage was raised, and your pay was below it, yours would be raised, too. Second, why is human nature so prone to thinking, "If I don't have something, no one else should have it either!" instead of "hey, they deserve that, and so do I"? I've seen this so many times in the debate about public employee retirement or health benefits. People scream, "I work in the private sector and I don't get a retirement!" I always want to say, "You're right, that's totally unfair. Go demand a retirement! Hell, unionize! " What impulse makes you wish everyone were as miserable as you rather than wishing you were as happy as others?

Anyway, off my soapbox. I hope it happens soon, and I am thankful for Obama (with reservations), Elizabeth Warren, and the Occupy movement, which has kind of died down, but which did bring attention to income inequality in this country.



*I don't know the ins and outs of radio DJ contracts. This guy is ON the radio 23 hours a week, but I suspect he also has to prepare, go to meetings, and do publicity stuff.

What's your excuse?

Sorry I'm Not Sorry

When I posted the above image on Facebook, I was just trying to say that I am extremely well-educated. I'm naturally smart, but I also make education a priority. I'm sorry you responded to the image by reflecting on your own failings. I won't go into details about how things were hard for me too -- how I struggled with science classes and worked 35 hours a week while taking a full course load at school, too. I won't even mention how it took ten years for me to get the three degrees I have, and how I got both my teaching credential and my Masters while working full time as a teacher.

What I will say is this: it's not my responsibility if you're too dumb and lazy to get an education. If you're jealous of me and my high levels of attainment, you can work to improve yourself and alleviate those feelings of inferiority. Stop being inferior to me and you won't feel inferior anymore.
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Update

Wow, what a whirlwind! It seems like people really hate me over this. Many people are saying that I must be naturally gifted, or have circumstances that allow me to advance my education in ways that others don't. Of course it would be silly to say that everyone should be exactly like me! Not everyone is born with the intelligence I was gifted with. People are different! I just wanted to inspire people to be as good as me. With hard work, anyone can attain high levels of education, and that's something you should strive for. If that makes you feel bad about yourself, that's not my fault. I am the product of discipline, dedication, and desire. I just wanted to inspire you to start on your own educational path. I feel so misunderstood. I'm an inspiration!
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New Blog Post, Y'all!

This morning I saw in my news feed a bunch of posts and news items about people who had dropped out of school for a life path they found more fulfilling. I can't believe that in America in 2013, we would be celebrating people who choose to be dumb! They were saying that school wasn't for them, and they were proud of it and loved themselves anyway! I know getting an education is hard, but I can tell you -- it is worth it. I just think we are breeding a strange mentality when we celebrate people who choose not to be smart. Smart and well-educated go hand-in-hand, and there's really no way these people can be smart while choosing not to get their education. It's really shameful, and they should be ashamed of themselves. And we should all be ashamed for giving them a platform to celebrate their stupidity. Shame is really the message to take away from this.
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I'm Banned from Facebook. 

So, apparently some people thought that last blog post was too critical of dummies and I was reported on Facebook for it, so they took the post down. But I made sure to include it here because, hateful or not, I think everyone deserves to hear my thoughts on the subject! Again, if you feel bad about yourself for being really, really dumb, that's not my fault, but yours. But some people took my words to mean that you shouldn't love yourself if you're dumb, or that you should be ashamed of yourself. I didn't mean that. I meant, you shouldn't love yourself and you should be ashamed of yourself until you strive to get smarter. And then, when you are smart like me, you can love and accept yourself as you are. I have a passion for intelligence and education (and, can I make this point often enough? I believe the two are interchangeable and inextricably linked), and I just think everyone should value the same things I do. In fact, I don't really understand that there are other things out there that people value. So, sorry-not-sorry for ruffling some feathers out there, but I have to stand up for what I am passionate about!


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If it was unclear, the above was satire. And though I hate to drive even more traffic to this gal's page, here's the link if you're so inclined.

Maria Kang been making the news a lot (like, a LOT a lot) lately for her views about obesity. And obesity is a problem. But poor health and fat aren't as closely related as she makes it seem -- I know plenty of people who have a high BMI and are very fit athletes, and of course there are the people in terrible health who are slender. And she says we should celebrate people who are a result of discipline and hard work. But that's sad to me -- that she believes the only kind of discipline is the kind that results in physical fitness. People have other priorities, and can and should be celebrated for the successes they have in other areas. Nevertheless, even though I disagree with Ms. Kang on many things, I was going to decline to comment on it. But the rant that was removed from Facebook was egregious. It was aimed at a group of women who were celebrating and loving themselves, and who had put themselves out there, quite bravely, only to be lambasted by the likes of Kang, who finds their bodies unappealing. Kang is a fitness model, and she sells fitness and diet-related products for a living. I'm happy for her that she looks as great as she does. But the bottom line is that the women in the Curvy Girl campaign announced, "I am beautiful and I am deserving of love," and Kang replied, in effect, "No." That's some bullshit right there.


It's good to eat right. It's good to be healthy. I wish I wasn't so fat. And I agree with Kang that it's important to work towards improvement goals (not only physical ones, but including those). But my question for you, today, is "What's your excuse… for not loving yourself as you are?"

P.S. I don't think the smart/well-educated and thin/healthy analogy here is a perfect parallel (for example, I don't think people who are fat have "dropped out" of trying to be, you know what I'm saying?), but I do think that the idea that linking fat to unhealthiness in every instance is fallacious, and I think Kang's statement that you can tell if someone is unhealthy "just by looking at them" is both insulting and weird.

Ungrateful

So on top of everything else, I get to feel guilty.

No, just, you know… that whole "date we quit trying if we haven't gotten pregnant by then" passed. I thought I was pregnant and then it was very apparent that I wasn't. (Like, I had a plan to go to the Dollar Tree for one of them dollar pregnancy tests, so… glad I didn't waste the buck.) And I'm trying so hard to just will myself to pack up all the baby shit and take it to Goodwill. But even thinking of it makes me cry.

And I was like, "Gee, Mockula, you usually write a list of all the things you're grateful for at Thanksgiving." And I was like, "Pound sand, inner voice!"

And then I was like, "Well, I remember how this process felt before I had Z, and now I have her, and my life is a million times more awesome even though it was pretty good before, because I have a wonderful family and home and job and my health and my Sweetie, who is just tops." And I managed to eke out, in my head, a little "I'm thankful we're together, and safe, and healthy, and warm." And inner voice was all "That's pathetic!" and then I felt bad for not feeling more genuinely grateful today.

But anyway, if* you see me driving a carload of stuff to the Goodwill, and on top of it is a crib, then, you know, just try to avert your gaze, because I am an ugly cryer and then I'll be embarrassed, too.



*And even if I manage to do it, no guarantees that it isn't some freaky bargain I've made in my brain to try to trick the universe into thinking I've given up. "Oh gosh! A positive pregnancy test! And just when I had gotten rid of the last of the baby things!"

My husband says he won't listen to my angry rants about the newspaper since I recently re-subscribed. Honey? Don't read this.

Here's an article that appeared in my newspaper today.

Can I just take some of this shit point by point? I'll differentiate the newspaper text from mine by font color. This is about the superintendent of our school district, who is stepping down.

Before starting as the new superintendent of the Sacramento City Unified School District, Jonathan Raymond was told how he could escape unscathed from the no-win job he was taking on.

“Rudy Crew (a former Sacramento superintendent who later ran New York’s public schools) told me: ‘Stay three years, keep your head down, and whatever you do, don’t close any schools,’” Raymond said with a wistful smile the other day.

Of course, Raymond did close schools. 

Yes, seven of them. All in poor neighborhoods with higher-than-normal poverty and higher-than-normal numbers of brown kids. Just FYI. 

He not only didn’t keep his head down, he took on the local teachers union repeatedly. He actually cared about the poorest kids in a poor district and showed it by making those schools a priority backed by his office.

This doesn't exactly say that the teachers don't care about kids, but it comes pretty goddamn close. And this is the kind of thing that pisses me off about the newspaper. The teachers union is TEACHERS, just like a band is made of musicians. And he cared about SOME poor schools. Others got left in the dirt. 

In a state where the teachers unions control politicians, Raymond was ripe for being fired with an agenda that actually put kids first.

LOL. Find me ONE politician who is a puppet of the teachers union. 

So Raymond is leaving after four years of success against long odds, but with few accolades and allies.

He was the ultimate solitary figure, doing good work that was praised by outsiders and ripped by insiders. His experience is a window into what truly ails public education in California.

So you're saying he is praised by people who don't know dick about the situation and ripped by people who have to live with the effects of his policies? Good to know.

Hack politicians seeking higher office from the school board dais jerked Raymond around constantly, even as the district achievement gap between the highest performing non-minority students and lowest minority students was reduced under Raymond’s watch.

Probably all the results of his policies, too, right? Nothing to do with the hard work of those evil teachers. 

The teachers union fought him and sued him at every step, even as school suspensions dropped across the board – most tellingly at the middle-school level, from 3,437 in 2010 to 1,236 in 2013.

Yeah... we sued him because he violated our contract intentionally and repeatedly. Also, WE and the principals were the ones responsible for that drop. You're welcome. 

Under Raymond, the dropout rate in the district fell from 23.2 percent in 2010 to 11.5 percent in 2012. The Latino dropout rate went from 27.8 in 2010 to 13.9. And for African Americans, it dropped from 37.1 to 15.5 percent.

Given these numbers and other achievements, and the virtual silence Raymond’s coming departure has inspired, the question remains: Are public schools a priority in Sacramento?

If we’re being honest as a community – and we rarely are on this topic – the answer has to be no. And Raymond’s lonely experience is illustrative of why.

The local teachers union cares most of all about preserving teacher seniority.

Eat shit, Breton. You are a dirtbag. Obviously, the union cares about things like job protections for and the working conditions of teachers. But the TEACHERS, who make up the union, care a whole lot about kids and schools. Otherwise, they'd probably go do something else.

And you know what? When, due to budget issues, Raymond suggested shortening the school year by two days, do you know what teachers did? We said no -- we'd rather donate $950 each and teach those two days, because we thought the kids deserved the time. So we care most about preserving teacher seniority? Eat a bag of dicks, Breton.

Many parents talk a great game, but Raymond’s idea of lifting the lowest ships gained him scant love from many whose true idea of public school greatness was preserving the schools and programs that their kids were in. As he recalled, “It was like the parent from (the high-achieving Genevieve Didion Elementary in Greenhaven) told me at a meeting. She said: ‘Superintendent, you’re not just the superintendent for poor kids. You’re the superintendent for all kids.’”

Raymond will likely be appreciated much more in retrospect – after he leaves for his native Boston in December.

His “priority” schools have been a resounding success after he arranged for the poorest-performing schools in the district to receive stable funding and staffing.

I think we may have different definitions of "resounding success." One of the "priority schools" dropped 91 points on the API index. One of the schools to make the highest gains was one of the seven he closed.

Further, protecting the "priority schools" in many cases hurt the other schools. It took away funding from my school, at least as impoverished as the high school that was made a "priority." 

He set up a pipeline to cultivate principals and district leaders of the future. He prevailed in a lawsuit that allowed him to essentially get around teacher seniority in some cases. He got the community to pass school bonds to upgrade aging schools. He brought in youth counselors to foster a sense of community in schools where kids didn’t always enjoy the benefits of a stable home life.

Speaking of hurting my school, that lawsuit that allowed him to get around seniority meant that my school's staff was DECIMATED last year. (Actually, knowing that decimated means 10% destroyed, it was MORE than decimated.) Initially, about 1/3 of the English department was on the layoff list. We ended up losing five great teachers because first- and second- year teachers at the priority school were "skipped" due to their "special training." Whereas the special training our teachers had (including very specialized, very expensive training which allows us to run an advanced program for our neediest kids) was ignored. It didn't count. Tell me how that's a success? It's like being proud you could fatten up one of your two skinny kids by giving one of them the other's food. 

He was a tireless advocate for Common Core standards that push students – and teachers – to drill down deeper on core subjects. He also set up restorative justice programs in schools through which students worked out conflicts in a safe environment, often in contrast to the environments in which they lived.

Raymond also bit the bullet and closed schools with declining enrollments and was pilloried the entire way by vested interests.

Vested interests: parents and community groups. Those tyrants!

What was the worst thing that anyone said to him?

“I know where you live,” Raymond replied.

From the beginning, Raymond was in a tough spot.

He remembers, in his first week on the job, eagerly accepting an invitation from Mayor Kevin Johnson to attend a news conference.

“But some members of my board were upset. They said: ‘Remember who you work for.’”

It was then Raymond realized what a polarizing figure Johnson was to the teachers union for turning Sacramento High School into a charter school.

(Which was a shitty thing to do, and my neighborhood STILL doesn't have a comprehensive high school because of it.)

Raymond was wary of getting too close to Johnson for fear of having his initiatives scuttled by union-backed board members.

Oh, no worries: we endorsed some of those sonsabitches, but once they were elected, they gave us the finger and said yes to everything Raymond wanted, ever. They often read the Raymond-penned FRONT PAGE only of the board meeting agenda and voted based on that. 

Just months after Raymond arrived in 2009, Johnson pitched the idea of bringing Teach for America to city schools. The nonprofit organization trains teachers and sends them to underserved schools and Raymond thought it was a great idea to bring a small number to city schools.

Yeah... the district laid off 70 teachers that year. We actually did not need anybody. Particularly anybodies to whose organization you have to pay a finder's fee.

But when Raymond couldn’t be sure he’d get votes on his board to approve a pilot program, he had to tell Johnson he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t risk a big defeat so early in his tenure. The union objected, as other teacher unions have, because they label Teach for America as “union busters” who supplant veteran teachers with younger ones.

Mmmm... did you mean "younger" or "untrained?" 

Johnson was not happy and a potentially valuable ally has been kept at arm’s length – depriving city schools of the biggest funding rainmaker in Sacramento as a full partner.

Meanwhile, a worthwhile program eventually set up shop at Natomas public schools instead.

And there were even bigger obstacles.

“There are some teachers in our district who should be getting paid six figures and there are some who should have been gone yesterday,” Raymond said. “And as superintendent, there is very little I could do to influence either extreme.”

While Raymond felt isolated as he dealt with these issues in Sacramento, John Deasy, leader of the Los Angeles Unified School District, is poised to leave for many of the same reasons.

It is what it is, and Raymond is clear-eyed about it. The only time he grows emotional is when considering the children of Sac City Unified.

“I love our kids in Sacramento,” he said.

“I’ll never forget this first-grader. He was so cute wearing a suit that still had the labels on it and making a presentation at a science fair,” Raymond said. “For many of these kids, it’s probably the first time in their lives where someone told them, you matter. You’re going to be something. Who knows what is going to happen with that kid (in the suit)? But maybe that presentation was the spark for him. That’s the stuff I feel really good about.”

Aw, then someday perhaps he'll wake up and realize he had fuck-all to do with that. Because science fairs have been going on for decades, and it's teachers who organize them, teachers who judge them, teachers who stay late for them, and shitasses like Raymond who show up for the photo-op and then wax nostalgic about it later. Good riddance.

As for Breton, seriously, man... did a teacher touch you in the no-no place? We're not Lex Luthor. We're not like in the cartoons where the bees swarm together to make GIANT BEE. Do we have some political sway? Some. But here's an example of how tenuous and hard-won it is: last election, there was a CTA-endorsed piece of legislation running against a billionaire-endorsed proposition. CTA represents 325,000 people. There were about 6 billionaires who supported the other bill. We had grassroots action! We talked to people. We walked precincts. They spent an ASSLOAD of money. We spent money, too, although we didn't have the assloads they did. And for a while it was really, really close. We did win. But it's not like politicians or school board members bend to our will. We're an organization of people, of teachers. The fact that we talk to people *should* have some sway. Many parents support teachers and think their kids' teachers are doing a good job. Not because we're some giant threatening mafia, but because every day, we strive to send their kids home just a little bit improved. 

An Education

About two weeks ago, something came up about the pledge of allegiance. Zadie knew the whole thing, she said! Wow! we said. Let's hear it!

All three of us said, "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic, for which it stands, one nation..."

and then two of us fell silent and waited. One continued, "under God, indivisible..."

Huh. We thought. They still do that.

In the most unsurprised and least passionate voices we could muster, we mentioned that not everyone believes in God, and those who do don't all believe in the same one, and that some who DO believe in the same one don't think he has the same name, and isn't it funny how everyone in her classroom says "under God."

Not just everyone in her classroom -- the whole school! The principal comes on over the P.A. At first she thought the speaker was a heater! What a surprise!

Yes, quite!

You know, we said, we think you can and should say it if you want to, and not if you don't, but at our house one thing we try to do is to make sure everyone feels comfortable. So if someone ever chooses not to say the "under God" part, we would hope she wouldn't say anything about it, to help make the other person feel comfortable.

When we were choosing schools, we considered the public Waldorf-methods school, but it was really a commute. Many of Zadie's friends went to Montessori, but it was really a cha-ching. We considered several schools for their art and music programs, their proximity to home, their butterfly gardens. We did not consider test scores other than to rule out a school which boasted of quite good ones, earned primarily through hours of homework and a lack of other instruction. As we were getting ready to decide, our home school, the one for which we had guaranteed admission, announced that they were going IB. IB! The program I teach and love. I love its global perspective, its focus on the learner, its mission statement (among other things, they are going for "intercultural understanding and respect"). I love its belief in inquiry. I signed her up as soon as the window was open.

A few days ago, she came home with a hat on which she had colored a rainbow feather, and carefully traced the words "I sailed with Columbus." We complimented her and let it go.

But JESUS FUCK. I mean... My mom said, "You know, we learned all the wrong things, but later we learned the right ones and now we know better." And someone else said that they start learning the real story of things like the first Thanksgiving in about 6th grade. And that's fine, in many ways. I'm not aiming for her Kindergarten curriculum to include anything about cutting off the hands of indigenous people or selling 9-year-old girls as sex slaves. But, like... couldn't we just skip that asshole? I mean, it's not like they get the day off. Many places have started calling the day, if you need a goddamn theme, Indigenous People's day. Maybe you could color a basket instead, and trace "I wove baskets from reeds." Or it's October, harvest time... maybe we could talk about what's growing, or how early people grew stuff at all, or how food was stored in the early days of this country. That's all Kindergarten-friendly stuff.

I honestly just didn't really think the curriculum for my daughter, born 32 years after me, would be the same crap I learned, and the same crap the Brady Bunch kids learned, and the same stuff pretty much everyone past the age of copying the Bible and wearing dunce caps learned.

I can't imagine the amount of work that goes into being a Kindergarten teacher. Zadie turns in a packet of three pages of homework twice a week, and gets it back the next day with a comment, star, or happy face on every page. She has already learned all kinds of stuff that she didn't know before. This week, she is the VIP and she's very excited about it. Kindergarten makes her feel special and grown-up, and I love all that. But I think when I envisioned what a "global perspective" would look like in the younger grades, I didn't think it would mean strict and rigorous adherence to the doctrine of God and old dead white guys. And I am a little disappointed.

Update

Breaking up with optimism

Okay, so... we're trying to get pregnant. Not trying like, with science or anything, but giving it the old college try.

And before Duckie, we had said we'd try until Sweetie's 40th birthday, which is in 46 days. And then after Duckie, it took a little while to get my body settled again (and the doctor warned us away from trying for a couple months), and I admitted to Sweetie that I was losing faith that it would happen. He quickly said we could change our timeline if we needed to, and it *was* an arbitrary timeline, but I think he was just shocked to see me lose my near-eternal optimism.

You know, when I was younger and I learned about optimism and pessimism, optimism seemed like the one that suited me, and the option with the most potential for good. I mean, you're always looking forward to something good, and mostly it happens, and when it doesn't, well you can see the silver lining or look forward to the next good thing. You see disappointments as an anomaly rather than a way of life.

In Through the Looking Glass, the White Queen says that in her youth, she was able to believe six impossible things before breakfast. I may have her beat. I can believe that the symptoms of PMS are the symptoms of early pregnancy. I can put salsa on my eggs and drink two cups of bitter black coffee, then believe that that reflux-y feeling is morning sickness. I can believe that spotting is implantation, rather than a... scout. I can believe that a negative pregnancy test was just taken too early.

And for a long time, every month I would calculate what birthdate the potential baby would have. I would think about what season I'd be the biggest in. I'd figure out at what family gathering we could announce the happy news. I'd think, "this is the baby who went to Santa Cruz/hiking/the ocean before anyone knew about him." After Duckie, I have a harder time getting into that. I keep thinking of January 1st, 2014, his due date.

My cycle is irregular, so one month, it'll be day 29, and I'll be thinking "If it doesn't happen tonight, then I'll test tomorrow!" And I do, and it's negative, and a day later, on day 31, I'll start. And the next month, I'll have a day where I pee a lot on day 25, and I'll think, "Is this it?" and then I'll go to the bathroom and find I've had the shortest cycle ever. One way or another, I always get my hopes up, and they always get dashed.

I've just had my feelings hurt too many times. By my own stupid body.

I don't know if I'm ready to give up yet. People ask me a lot if we're planning to have another baby. I don't really want sympathy or follow-up questions, so I often give a very vague answer. Sometimes I outline why I might not want to have another, or why it might not be so bad if we didn't: no more diapers, no more sleepless nights, no more teething. And for a few minutes, I entertain the idea. Maybe those things are true. Parenting is hard, and often it is not fun at all. Sometimes I walk around in that idea like it is a pair of shoes I'm trying to break in: maybe it would be fine if we didn't have another. Maybe whatever happens is for the best. And then I'll see a mom with a baby in a wrap, and I just can't fathom not getting to do it again.

And I'm a magical thinker, even though I know it's ridiculous. A friend of mine, when I told her I was thinking of giving up, said "That's when it happens! Right when you give up, that's when it'll happen." And I was like, "YEAH. I'll give up! I'll tell myself I've given up so it will happen!" Which is not very good logic on a couple of fronts.

I'm tired. Tonight is day 28. In the last year, I've only had three cycles that were this long or longer. And so exactly half of me is thinking, "Maybe this is it! If I don't start by tomorrow at bedtime, I'll test on Sunday." And the other half is thinking, "you're such a fucking sap." I feel like Charlie Brown when Lucy holds the football for him. Why does he keep believing her? Is it optimism or downright stupidity? I want to think the best of Charlie. And of myself. But I'm starting to think optimism is for suckers.

Trickle up poverty? LOL!

I saw a bumper sticker today with the Obama logo and the words "trickle-up poverty." It struck me that it would be pretty hard, actually, to impoverish the wealthy of this country. But I kind of like math, so I decided to see just HOW unlikely "trickle-up poverty" actually is.


The lowest 15% of people in this country live in poverty, defined as making less than just about $20,000 per year for a family of three.


I went ahead and rounded up to the lowest 20%; that's 23,682 households (not people).


Although you can separate them into smaller chunks, the average amount they make in that 20% is $10,000 to $14,999 per year.


I rounded up, and figured they would need about $10,000 per household to not be officially in poverty. (Technically, I'm rounding still more, because most of the households in the lowest quintile consist of fewer than three people, so they would qualify for being out of poverty with even less cash.)


23,682 households multiplied by $10,000 means we'd need $230,682,000. That's a LOT!


The total population of the U.S. is about 313,914,040, so the top 1% represents 3,139,140 people.


To reach our lofty goal of having $230 million and change to bring people out of poverty, they'd have to contribute...







$75 each.


So you know how all those politicians and rich guys are always like, "If Warren Buffet thinks he should pay more taxes, let him write a check!"? I think those guys should suck my balls.

For the record, I don't necessarily think this is a great plan (neither the $75 checks nor the ball-sucking). I also recognize that there are differences between households and people (like Mitt AND Ann Romney would have to kick in $75, for a total of $150). And frankly, if we really want to fix the system, we're going to have to pour a lot more money than $230 million into education, social security, health care, etc. I realize that the contribution would have to be yearly, not a one-time check. And frankly, just having $20,000 doesn't really make a family of three exactly comfortable. The only point to this super-fun-time math is that you could take the ENTIRE COUNTRY out from under the federal poverty level, and the super-wealthy maybe couldn't buy ten hand-carved ice cubes. Depending on where you look, the 1 percent's net worth averages between 6.8 and 16 million per household.

I'm not blaming the 1% (although there are plenty of reasons why I could), but shit, y'all.

It's not about Trayvon Martin

It's about race in America, the justice system, prejudice, and the fact that many times, in many ways, it's still hard for black people to get a fair shake here.

Let's talk about Martin first, but then I'm going to branch out.

The first way that race affected the Martin case is that Zimmerman profiled Martin because he "fit the description" of burglary suspects in the area. In other words, he was black. Zimmerman initially followed Martin for the sole reason that he found young black males to be suspicious. The first step leading to Martin's unnecessary death was that he was born black.

And whether Zimmerman's mom is Peruvian, Zimmerman appeared to police to be white, and when they arrived on the scene and Trayvon was dead on his stomach with his hands under him, they approached the situation as though Zimmerman had been attacked and defended himself. He was treated for minor injuries, questioned, and released. No charges were pressed. Perhaps you can believe, in your heart of hearts, that a black man who shot a white (or white Hispanic) teen would also have been released. I am not so sure.

Did they thoroughly investigate? Did the collect all the evidence they should have? It's hard to say, but it looks like the police took a pretty lackadaisical approach to the case, assuming it would not be prosecuted. (For example, they didn't check Zimmerman's truck or test him for drug or alcohol use.)

Due to intense public scrutiny and media pressure (more on that later), Zimmerman was finally arrested and charged. Charged with 2nd degree murder, which would have been hard to prove. Why pursue charges it would have been hard to win with? Who knows.

Angela Corey is the prosecutor assigned to the case. It happens that in Florida, 27% more black teens are charged as adults than white teens. But Corey charges black teens as adults even more often than that, 70% of blacks to 18% of whites. Why was a woman who has a track record of treating black teens unjustly given the job of getting justice for a black teen? Who knows.

Florida's laws say that self-defense is a justified reason to kill someone. Okay. But that means that if you claim self-defense, to be convicted, the prosecution has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you were in fear for your life. If you are the only surviving witness, and you stick to your story that you were in fear for your life, it's pretty much a get out of jail free card. What Twelve Angry Men kind of legal angle can any prosecutor pull out to prove you weren't scared? Who knows. Perry Mason couldn't put you away in that situation (well, unless your victim is white).

But manslaughter, right? My understanding of manslaughter is that somebody died, and it was directly your fault, but you didn't really mean to. Like, you could be found guilty of manslaughter for changing the CD in your car, taking your eyes off the road, and killing a cyclist. So it doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility that a jury could convict someone who followed and intimidated a teen, ignored police instructions not to follow him, and then, in a tussle (whose origins we will never know), shot him point blank in the chest. Wouldn't a jury have to be crazy not to convict him of manslaughter?

Not a jury with juror B37 on it, who refers to Zimmerman as "George."

So I don't think Trayvon was served by the justice system. But I also don't think it's an isolated incident.

[From this point forward, I'm going to provide a lot of links.... Links which I've already read, but to sit down and read/watch them all in one day would probably give you a pretty serious bad mood, so I'm going to summarize them, and you can follow them if you want, or skip them.]

People have been talking a lot about Marissa Alexander. The father of her children was abusive. She had a restraining order against him. He got violently angry at her in the house, and she ran into the attached garage. The garage door opener was broken, and she didn't have the car keys. Realizing she had no means of escape, she grabbed a gun instead. Back inside the house, she fired a warning shot. She was arrested, and because of the (Floriduh) mandatory minimum sentencing law, she will now be spending 20 years in prison.  If you hadn't guessed, she's black. 20 years for NOT killing anyone. Do you think the justice system (and her prosecutor, Angela Corey) treated her and Zimmerman equally?

And the (mostly right-wing, mostly white) commenters will jump in and say, "but she left and came back!" or "but firing a warning shot is illegal!" or "but there's mandatory sentencing, so they can't do anything about it, because it's the law!" Okey doke, but are we all pleased with a legal system that lets people who kill teenagers off scot-free and gives twenty years to a woman who tried to scare off her abuser instead of killing her children's father?

And what about Jordan Davis, who was sitting in a car with his friends at a gas station when a guy in the next car told them to turn their music down? One friend turned the knob, but Jordan said no and went to turn it back up. The driver of the other car pulled out a gun and fired multiple times into their car, killing Davis. He claimed Stand Your Ground, saying that he felt threatened by the boys, claiming to see something that looked like a gun pointed at him (though his own girlfriend says he didn't tell her anything about seeing a gun). So basically, if you don't like someone's music and they don't obey your orders to turn it down, you can shoot them to death. And he may indeed have been frightened of a car full of (middle class, churchgoing) black boys, but isn't that kind of his problem? I mean, I honestly don't think I can go to Florida, shoot a white guy, and say that it's because I fear white guys.

What about the black police officer who was shot 28 times (!) by white officers, and the officers were cleared of all wrongdoing, even though they couldn't even produce as evidence the vest that the black officer had supposedly shot? In fact, he was never tested for gun residue and his car was crushed before forensic tests could be done. Oh yeah, and HE was found guilty of attempted murder.

And the justice system itself, as a whole (not just Florida and SYG laws) is skewed and unfair. Blacks are excluded from juries. Black people tend to get found guilty more often, sentenced to longer terms.

White on white homicide is considered justified far less often than white on black homicide, and far more often than black on white homicide.

And of course, unemployment is higher among blacks, which your republican friends will say is because they're lazy and enjoy sucking off the government teat, but then you read stories like this (job application), where a black woman tries to get a job interview for months before changing her race to white on her Monster.com (job search) profile, when she miraculously gets ALL the interviews, and if you're not being just a touch dishonest, you start to wonder if maybe it is hard to get a fair shake in this country. (This is where your republican friends will say at least we don't live in some-other-country-that-has-obvious-problems.)

And speaking of sucking off the government teat, your republican friends will swear up and down that black people are welfare queens, but the vast majority of people on welfare are white. But they're so invested in that narrative that they build campaign promised and speaking engagements around it.

And speaking of crime and incarceration, is it just possible that black people get arrested for so many crimes because of some kind of societal prejudice? Something like that passerby will ignore a white man or white woman, even after admitting that they are stealing a bike (in one instance that would be funny if it weren't so sad, even helping the woman steal the bike), whereas a black man dressed in the same manner will have an angry crowd around him calling 911 within seconds?

Or is it possible that police stop and frisk more people of color, thereby finding more of them doing something wrong, while letting whites walk past unmolested? [Edited Friday to add OHMYGOD, go look at the pink and black graphs on here.]

Or that there's a racial disparity in sentencing?

As for the media, it's still damned hard to find positive portrayals of Black people on tv (cue apologists saying "but what about that one character on that one show?" or "what about the BET channel? How come there's no white channel?"). And the public is complicit as hell. When Cheerios made a commercial with an interracial family,* the YouTube comments were so heinous they had to disable them. When a comic franchise considers making an iteration of a beloved character black, the public goes ape-shit. Even when a movie is filmed that casts a black actress in the role of a black character in a book, the public goes ape-shit, because their default is so white, they didn't even realize the character was black, and they can't imagine it any other way.

I saw this posted on a friend's wall the other day. I called her out on it, and I'm probably going to lose her friendship over it. I would care more, but later the same day she posted one of those attributed-to-Bill-Cosby rants about how black people's problems are black people's fault. So if you don't want to get called racist, maybe stops posting racist shit. Anyway...


The Marley Lion case is tragic. I would never want to take away from that primary, sad fact. I'm so sorry for his family's loss. But the subtle message of this picture and comparison goes something like this: "A black kid and a white kid were both murdered, but only one has received national attention. Clearly, the media favors black kids over white kids." And that is such intellectually dishonest bullshit that you'd either have to be dumb as dog shit or secretly racist to believe it and perpetuate it. Because the difference between the two cases isn't skin color of either the victim or the perpetrator:  It's the way they were handled afterward. In Trayvon's case, his killer was allowed to go home and not charged with anything until media pressure demanded it. In Lion's case, the Secret Service and the ATF were called in to assist in finding the killers. All the people involved were charged with multiple offenses. Perhaps media attention on the Lion case would have helped his family feel honored and validated. But there are something like 1,800 homicides of kids under 18 every year, and I don't think the media can cover all of them. But it's not always necessary, either, as it was in Trayvon's case to attempt to get some justice.

Another major, and tragic, difference in the two cases is this: every media outlet, every commenter, every blog and tweet about Lion assumes he was a good guy who didn't deserve to die ( I assume that, too). But there are a disproportionate number of people who assume Trayvon was a bad person, and he did deserve to die. And they went over his life with a fine-toothed comb to prove to themselves that they were right. No one did that to Marley. Thank god. It shouldn't have been done to Trayvon either. I saw a comment somewhere that said it appeared that Trayvon was on trial for his own murder. If you have children, I just want to you imagine for a moment how that would feel: your beloved child is dead, and thousands of people look up every photo of them looking tough, every school record of the time they got in trouble, every possible clue that they might have been a bad person. Geez, what would they have found on me?! And how that would have felt to my parents! But the thing is, I don't really believe it would have gone down that way. I think if a pretty blond girl was found dead, it'd be pretty unlikely that the next day, you'd read; "Breaking Mockula case news: Mockula tossed out of high school for shockingly poor attendance, grades," followed by 500 comments to the effect of "thank god for the bullet. I told you she was a thug. She brought this on herself." Because society treats black men differently.

And it doesn't matter if you're the award-winning, wealthy musician who is a relatively famous tv bandleader; people will still be frightened of you on the elevator. And it doesn't matter if you're a Harvard professor; your neighbors will still see a black man and call the police when you approach your own house. And it doesn't matter if you're a beloved actor; if the police pull you over, you go through certain protocol to protect your life.

And people seem to think that black people don't feel pain the same way white people do.

And kids identify white dolls as "pretty and good" and black dolls as "ugly and bad."

And most of us have SOME racial preference**... that doesn't mean it's bad, necessarily, just that it's a part of our society and our culture. So when, you know, the Supreme Court says that racism is over, so we no longer need the Voting Rights Act, well... I would tend to question that.

This is already a novel, and there's so much more to say. The reason I am riled up about the Trayvon Martin case is that not only does it show the deepest, darkest ugliest parts of our institutional racism, but it also shined a light on the apparently enormous number of people who think that is just fine and want it to stay the way it is, or who still can't see it and tell themselves all kinds of lies or focus on details that allow it to be okay for them. A black kid's life appears to be worth nothing, but after all, the dispatcher phrased it as "we don't need you to follow him." So everything's fine, the justice system is working as it should, la la la, I can't hear you.

*You can watch that Cheerios link -- the video I linked is actually quite sweet and heartwarming.
** This link offers a number of tests of your personal "implicit assumptions." It is interesting, revealing, and a little disturbing. I've taken quite a few, and I'm always surprised when they reveal a "slight preference" in some category. So take them at your own risk. It can be a blow to your view of yourself.