What We Have to Do

I had been in dozens of schools, as a teacher, coach and administrator.  I had just finished an assignment in the toughest school in our district, Pioneer, a highly regarded Continuation School, when I arrived at my last assignment; a Superintendent Principal at a small mountain district in rural California.  

The continuation school won state honors under my leadership, but more as a testimonial to the good work the staff had been doing for years for “at-risk” students.  They were experts at taking angry young men and women, damaged children if you will, and getting them back on track to graduation; making citizens out of potential criminals.

And it was not for the faint of heart, it was not easy.  It was the hardest work I had ever done.  It wasn’t for everyone.  And it took courage and resilience to show up for work everyday and listen to the stories, that ultimately every time was a result of childhood abuse; sexual and otherwise, abandonment and poverty.

Take that and multiply it times 100 and you get working in racially segregated urban areas.  The violence is multiplied many time; the anger many times.  

Take that and multiply it by 1000 if you work in a Native American community.

That was my last assignment.  It was almost like by accident.  I had a serious conflict with my Superintendent in my Pioneer assignment.  He for some reason, wanted to seriously reduce our efforts to help at risk youth.  He started to dismantle what had been in evidence for years and I fought him.  It came down my leaving or lawsuits.  I took leaving.

And I wound up next to a Native American rancheria (reservation). The population was about 40% Native American, the rest very conservative ranchers.

I called it cowboys and Indians.  

The first fight I was brought into to deal with was a wake up call.  I used all the tricks of the trade I had used at Pioneer (an alternative school for tough street wise kids) and went nowhere.

They did not say a thing, they looked down and seemed to accept what I was saying as I suspended them for a couple days and sent them home after I tried to call their parents.  Parents very seldom could be found, we usually had one of our bus drivers drive them to the “res” with a van.  

I was told by my secretary, as they left, they had massively disrespected me.  “They were telling you to F off”, she said.  I said how, they were respectful, didn’t argue with me, took their punishment quietly.

She told me, “They never looked up at you, they looked down.  To a Native American that is the utmost sign of disrespect”.

I did not know that, and I am 1/16 Cherokee.  I didn’t have a clue what I was getting into.

And so it went.  It was many times worse than Del Palo Heights, where I started my teaching journey.  And when I tell people I taught in the “Heights” people shake their head and say “My God, you taught there?”

So I have been “there”, but never like what existed in the rural corner of California that had a reservation of many tribes existing in squalor, pain, and the lack of hope.

For two years I tried to learn.  I did what I could.  And I was amazed by the resiliency of the people, of how some were surviving just fine, and their children, both white and brown, were succeeding.  And the others, the suicides, the prostitution of 12 year olds, the little boys and girls running the streets of the reservation at 3:00 in the morning because their parents (whoever that was) was too wasted to take care of them; they still haunt my dreams even today!

And of the federal government, who ignored them.  Of the pathetic level of support for the people of the reservation who were basically in prison there.  

And the leadership of the reservation who worked hard for their people, who were supported many times by my staff, and who were finally graduating Native Americans from the school system; the first graduate was in the late 1990s, the district had been there for almost 100 years!

This is America...this is the America that is still there, that stands as testimonial to white supremacy of hate and racism.  And the other America that refuses to give up, that fights back, that kneels during the National Anthem to show America that we have a great amount of work to do.

I have no regrets.  I went into the monster.  Many do, and it breaks them, they quit because it takes courage, sometimes physical courage; it takes heart, and it takes a social conscience that is able to say, don’t take it personal, they don’t hate you, they hate “it”, in may ways the clown in the sewer from the movie, that seeks to kills us all with its hate and prejudice.

Only thing, the “clown”, it...has yellow hair and flies around in Air Force One.

We need a new effort in America...we have done good work, but we have just uncovered “it”...he still lurks in our hearts, we have a President who uses it, personifies it, dividing us for his political gain.     

But we need a new generation to go into the Heights, into the agony, the pain, and educate...educate...educate....teach the hopeless that there is hope.

As I walk amongst my fellow students at Sac State, and I see the effort working, I see diversity, Black, Brown, White walking to classes together; far more  diverse than it was for me as a graduate student 45 years ago.  It is working, we are getting there.

So keep kneeling at football games, keep reminding us that we have more work to do....to unite this country as a place for equal opportunity for all!

What we don’t want to do, is accept Trump’s negativity and his hate...and what YOU have to do is quit helping him...