student at Locke High school involved in estimated 600-student fight
the usual response to youth violence
lock-down policy in effectthe la times and other mainstream media outlets have described what went down at locke high school last friday as a "huge racial brawl," in which a reported 600 students got down over tensions between brown and black students. the conflict was said to have surfaced over a rivalry between tagger crews at the high school. others, including an intervention specialist sent to the campus post-brawl, say the problems are more systemic:
"Historically black Watts has changed rapidly to a Latino-majority community, with gangs of both ethnicities claiming overlapping turf in the economically depressed streets. Locke's student body is about 65% Latino and 35% African American."
i don't work at locke high school, so i can't exactly discuss the causes for what happened last week. but i do know that i can see the same tensions at the school where i work, which has the same demographic of brown and black students, coupled with a sprinkling of filipino, tongan, samoan, vietnamese, arab and south asian kids. there isn't any explicit beef between students, altho there are fights every now and then between blacks and browns, blacks on blacks, browns on browns, and so on.
i recall two years ago, walking out of my classroom as a student-teacher to several fights breaking out over campus as one black student took off his shirt to thrown down with an oncoming crowd of angry latino students. local police were called in, sportin shot guns and helmets, as teachers and staff tried to quell the commotion. similar "race riots" occurred at the school a decade ago.
besides more explicit shows of hostility, i could sense an underlying tension between different groups on campus as a teacher. what i love most about my school is the pride students have in their culture, as we have numerous cultural clubs from filipino, mecha, african american student body and pacific islander clubs. but what i also notice is the inability (or maybe just the lack of desire) to connect with other groups. for african american history month, i took my class (mostly of latino students) to the african american history assembly and to my dismay my students slouched in their chairs, chatting with their neighbors, hardly caring about the pride and sweat black students put into their awesome show. during cinco de mayo, i had my class do a reading of a poem from the chicano movement and again to my dismay, i noticed my black students rolling their eyes, giving sass as to why we were reading "this shit." the same girl who rolled her eyes at the poem, rolled her eyes once again as i played merengue music a latino student had brought in to play for the class.
sometimes i think i'm nitpicking when it comes to noticing things like that, but i also believe that these subtleties in the classroom, along with the fights outside, along with systemic issues like gang warfare, migration patterns, and our inability to acknowledge the fear and depression youth carry, and the prison system and racism, and so much more -- we need to discuss all these concerns openly with youth and treat them as the smart individuals that they are. many of them may not be able to pass friday's test or sit still in a classroom, but shit, all of em know the conditions they live in and how that affects their livelihood everyday.
but we prefer to enact lock down policies, where we bring in law enforcement, arrest youth, lock in the "good" and execute the "bad-ass" ones, slowly return the good students back to their parents, call it a night, and return the next morning like nothing happened. this lock down policy represents the inclination to not just lock down classrooms, but to shut down any dialogue about what the real problems are. just as my students are shoved off their own campus as the bell rings (and even restrooms are shut down right afterschool), told not to "congregate" at near-by businesses (including food joints), the conflicts that arise between different cultures, different clicks and sets are thrown under the rug in silence. and again, the idea that "this is just the way it is" is reinforced through that silence.
so what the hell can we do instead?
i can't say i have a clear answer. but i do know that we can start with more honesty -- acknowledging the problem, as crenshaw high did on saturday to show solidarity in the community for its youth. we can start with discussing the similar struggles brown and black and yellow and red and all people of color have had to endure, as the african american history museum in l.a. showcases the little-known history of the african presence in mexico, showing through the first of june.
so, i would say, that's a start... but what else?
"Historically black Watts has changed rapidly to a Latino-majority community, with gangs of both ethnicities claiming overlapping turf in the economically depressed streets. Locke's student body is about 65% Latino and 35% African American."
i don't work at locke high school, so i can't exactly discuss the causes for what happened last week. but i do know that i can see the same tensions at the school where i work, which has the same demographic of brown and black students, coupled with a sprinkling of filipino, tongan, samoan, vietnamese, arab and south asian kids. there isn't any explicit beef between students, altho there are fights every now and then between blacks and browns, blacks on blacks, browns on browns, and so on.
i recall two years ago, walking out of my classroom as a student-teacher to several fights breaking out over campus as one black student took off his shirt to thrown down with an oncoming crowd of angry latino students. local police were called in, sportin shot guns and helmets, as teachers and staff tried to quell the commotion. similar "race riots" occurred at the school a decade ago.
besides more explicit shows of hostility, i could sense an underlying tension between different groups on campus as a teacher. what i love most about my school is the pride students have in their culture, as we have numerous cultural clubs from filipino, mecha, african american student body and pacific islander clubs. but what i also notice is the inability (or maybe just the lack of desire) to connect with other groups. for african american history month, i took my class (mostly of latino students) to the african american history assembly and to my dismay my students slouched in their chairs, chatting with their neighbors, hardly caring about the pride and sweat black students put into their awesome show. during cinco de mayo, i had my class do a reading of a poem from the chicano movement and again to my dismay, i noticed my black students rolling their eyes, giving sass as to why we were reading "this shit." the same girl who rolled her eyes at the poem, rolled her eyes once again as i played merengue music a latino student had brought in to play for the class.
sometimes i think i'm nitpicking when it comes to noticing things like that, but i also believe that these subtleties in the classroom, along with the fights outside, along with systemic issues like gang warfare, migration patterns, and our inability to acknowledge the fear and depression youth carry, and the prison system and racism, and so much more -- we need to discuss all these concerns openly with youth and treat them as the smart individuals that they are. many of them may not be able to pass friday's test or sit still in a classroom, but shit, all of em know the conditions they live in and how that affects their livelihood everyday.
but we prefer to enact lock down policies, where we bring in law enforcement, arrest youth, lock in the "good" and execute the "bad-ass" ones, slowly return the good students back to their parents, call it a night, and return the next morning like nothing happened. this lock down policy represents the inclination to not just lock down classrooms, but to shut down any dialogue about what the real problems are. just as my students are shoved off their own campus as the bell rings (and even restrooms are shut down right afterschool), told not to "congregate" at near-by businesses (including food joints), the conflicts that arise between different cultures, different clicks and sets are thrown under the rug in silence. and again, the idea that "this is just the way it is" is reinforced through that silence.
so what the hell can we do instead?
i can't say i have a clear answer. but i do know that we can start with more honesty -- acknowledging the problem, as crenshaw high did on saturday to show solidarity in the community for its youth. we can start with discussing the similar struggles brown and black and yellow and red and all people of color have had to endure, as the african american history museum in l.a. showcases the little-known history of the african presence in mexico, showing through the first of june.
so, i would say, that's a start... but what else?
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