Thursday, September 23, 2010

Chapter 19: In which I note...

Oakland High School is beautiful.

I take the bus to Mills College pretty much every day, and pretty much every day I see this high school. There are blacks, Asians, whites, Hispanics all there together. People colored golden brown and indigo, dark brown like an oak and light like a pine, the color of tea and coffee and flavors of ice cream. Multiculturalism is what I always viewed as the best thing about a public education, particularly in an area like the Bay. For much of my childhood, I was forced to go to a predominantly white parochial school, limited in terms of perspective, experiences and educational values. Going to public school in the eighth grade was living a dream, for me. I think how fortunate these kids are to be in such a place. And its sad, because I'm not sure if most of them know they're fortunate. Despite coming to this melting pot every day, they predictably break up into racial cliques. Do they know that they're surrounded by the beauty of the world's people?

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