Despairity
Yes, that's a play on "disparity."
I think I may have blogged once on this before - it figures prominently in my novel - and that is the obvious and glaring disparities caused by economic and ethnic and linguistic segregation here in Redwood City.
Normally, you probably wouldn't take much notice of it. When you're on the Latino side of town, everything's Latino. When you're on the white and Asian side of town, well, everything's white and Asian, with a few Latinos mixed in here and there. Being separate isn't that bad, is it? But when you bring the two sides together, create an opportunity to look at them together, side by side, which is what happens when teams from west side schools play against teams from east side schools in the local recreational youth sports leagues, the disparities between the two are just staggering. It's embarrassing. You almost can't bear to watch.
Today I was a witness rather than a direct participant. While waiting for my 5:00 basketball game with my 4th and 5th grade boys, the previous game was still going on. The score was something like 23 to 6 with about 7 minutes to go. On the one side sat the Fair Oaks squad. Fair Oaks is a school nearly identical demographically to us. 89% of their families are in poverty, 93% of their students are Latinos. 83% of their students are English Language Learners. All but 2 kids on the team were Latino - the other two were Pacific Islander.
On the other side sat the North Star Academy squad, nearly all white kids with a couple of Asian kids. North Star Academy is in the exact same district as Garfield and Fair Oaks. They are a GATE magnet - in other words, they take all the "gifted and talented" kids in the district and send them there. 14% of their families are in poverty. 64% of their students are white, 23% Latino, 10% Asian. 4% of their students are English Language Learners.
(all these stats come from the state of California for the 2004-2005 school year)
The stands were filled, a lively crowd - of white parents. North Star supporters.
With a 17 point lead, the North Star coach kept his best players in. A steal, and 2 more points. A picked off pass, and two more points. Soon the lead was up to 25. And did the coach call off the dogs? Did he make them take extra passes? Did he put in his least experienced players to get some playing time? No. He kept his top guys in until there were 3 minutes left and they had a 28 point lead - 36 to 8.
You can explain the skill differential in many ways. Many of the North Star players have played before in leagues like NJB. Our kids can't afford to participate in NJB. They have dads who know how to play basketball, and who play with them. Many of our kids don't have dads, and if they do, they're probably busy working (and, basketball isn't exactly the most popular sport in rural Michoacan, a state in Mexico where nearly all of our families are from). They have houses with basketball hoops over the garage. Our kids have apartment buildings with gangsters loitering outside. They have nice new basketball shoes and basketball shorts. Our kids slide around the court on worn out sneakers in their school uniform pants.
What lessons do these 9, 10, and 11 year olds learn?
I've been coaching for nearly 8 years now. I don't think it's coincidence that every season there are instances before games when, upon first seeing our nearly all white opponents on the other side of the court, I've had players instinctively mutter, "I think we're going to lose."
posted by prez @ 7:14 PM
2 Comments
2 Comments:
Interesting...but I don't think there is a connection between the white team keeping players in the game and economic disparity. I think the only connection being made is perhaps your frustration to a situation...the running up of a score as well as our societal inequities.
But what if we were to look at this in another way.
I wonder what the white team thinks when they are going to play your school? What if they were to play an all-black school? What do they think when they play another all-white school?
Point being, you are making astute connections, but I would argue that the connection can't be made. The stats you have given are valid: the amount of poverity, ELLs, etc. But, Rome was not built nor a basketball game won in a day...and the conditions your students live in in America, I assume, are better than in Michoacan or they wouldn't even be here. Those children that come from richer families aren't to blame for having a family with money...just as your students aren't to blame for coming from families that have less money.
If a comparison were made between the evil haves and the unfortunate have nots...what is there for anyone to be? What if the have nots were to become the haves? Do we wish to become what we despise...or what we admire?
So, in answer to your question, what lessons are learned?
Maybe the haves arent evil-doers, score-runner upers at all. But maybe they are....in life as well as in the game. Either way the white kids are just a much a vicitim of circumstance as the Latinos. And instead of pitting one against another in a needless metaphorical basketball game where one color team always wins under unfair conditions, let's see the game for what it is in the first place: an opportunity that never would have happened at all if we didn't live in a world that not only strives for the underdog to win, but that also admires and sometimes even despises the qualities in others we someday wish to obtain.
Your kids WILL keep playing...and one day, they WILL win...and then they can find another wrong to right. Baby steps. Until then...don't let one dumbass basketball coach, one city, or our fricken society stop YOU from being who are you: a good person and a great teacher, who fights the battles of inequality day after endless day.
But this day, after such a defeat, reflect on what you HAVE done, not what you have yet to do...and dream about what you continue to accomplish.
Why can't it be the mom that teaches the kid to play basketball? Stereotypes are like the gopher game at the arcades: as you're punching one down, others pop up and you just can't win. So why bother? Sooner or later, we will all interbreed to become the same race, one's sex will be a casual surgical option, physics and psychiatry will explain the divine and we'll still find ways to segregate ourselves. It's human nature, and it isn't going away. It begs the saying that advises something along the lines of accepting things that won't change, changing those that will and knowing the difference between the two. Like Mark said, these kids have a whole lot more opportunities here than wherever they came from. At the fire dept, we like to say ---and this is applicable to your job as well--- "We didn't create the problem, we're just here to make it better."
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