Letters to the Editor
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Not just another....
As a mother of two kids that went through the Berkeley Public Schools I cried reading this article. I remember in kindergarten when my son and all the kids were playing together looking at them and realizing what different destinies were attached to each of them. Some of the destiny they would make, but a great deal was already made for them by their class and race. For those few early years I felt a glimmer of hope, but with time I saw how when I would take my son's best friend home he would have to walk through a gauntlet of young men that he wanted to emulate. By high school, his friend was deeply into the gangs and he dissappeared from our lives. They, my son and his friend, were in different worlds. We saw him once in a while, but then he dissapeared after coming to our house one day and taking a bicycle of our front porch. Last we heard he was in jail.
What do we do? That is the question. Obviously what we are doing as a society right now is not working. All the good intentions of the diverse schools failed to face the reality and lacked the financial and political resources to erase the differences in the destinies of class and race. Ultimately, the schools serve those who will be served because they have the entitelment of race and class-- and yet they are the ones that stay away from our public schools cringing in fear.
What do we do? I have been asking myself that question for the 18 years I have seen this first hand among my children's friends. I know we have to do something that is my physical, emotional and intellectual reaction. How do we serve Keith and all the other children that are killed and or discarded into prisons? I used to think I knew, but I surely don't know anymore.