On Our Own

22.

I will continue to quote from the novel White Knight a little more. Here is another of the more subjective, second person passages:

Even as you have reached the zenith of your political career (so far), a lurking fear settles into your life like an old friend. As a leader, you fear making a mistake and opening yourself up to attack. But they could attack you anyway. They already have. They have taken your job away. You can collect unemployment for awhile, and you can tell lies about how much time your kids spend with you in order to get a large allotment of food stamps, but even surplus food won't fill that hollow in your belly where the fear lurks. It pisses you off that the system has such a hold over you, that it can mess with your mind simply by cutting off your livelihood, but that doesn't stop you from waking up in the middle of the night in a sweat surrounded by multiple images of skulls with flames flicking out of their hollow eye sockets, followed by visions of terror that lurk in the shadows between dream and memory.

One of these dream memories is of your first year teaching; you are trying to teach a roomful of black elementary children, and they are gradually getting away from you as you try to hold a discussion about a fight two of them had outside on the schoolyard, but the children refuse to take turns, and you feel them taking sides in the fight instead of looking for solutions. You want them to find their own solution, so they defy your authority in ways that have you half agreeing with them, which boxes you in so there is nothing you can do but give in to the chaos, as what had been a fight between two children threatens to escalate into a brawl between the two polarized halves of the class. Another image comes from a memory you have of your first social contact with black people when you are eleven or so and your father invites a black ophthalmologist and his family to your home on the lake, a bold move on his part in those times, and how you take the family on a ride in your family's motorboat but you have no idea what to say and neither does anyone else. The silence grates on the ears in a bone chilling, fingernails on the blackboard kind of way. In another bold move, your father takes this man into his practice but as an associate, not a full partner, and the black family never returns to the house. The shrill silence conjures another image, when you are younger still, the silent black man who clucks at the horse pulling the hansom cab, clopping along the streets of Nassau with your vacationing family, your father, your mother, your sister, [Nicki], sightseeing but the sight you are seeing is of a shantytown of unbelievable at least to your eight year old eyes squalor; the hovels are made from corrugated tin and tarpaper, babies are screaming, your eyes sting from the smoke of the outside fires, the cooking smell mixes with that of the urine, dark people in rags huddle in the darkness, the din of their crowding angry and frightful, while placid looks mask the faces of your family, and you think: This couldn't possibly be real.

The days following our center's official closing are heady indeed. There are a million things involved with running a school, and I don't know what I'm doing. After the first two days, Earldean and Tessie both go back to work, so I'm on my own with Charlene, Sue Ann, Alice, and Eddie. Between us we have to buy, cook, and serve breakfast and lunch, answer the phone -- now listed in our own name, [Geneva] Towers Children's Center, Inc. -- maintain at least a semblance of paperwork, keep the place clean, collect fees so we can buy the food. After the second day, it's pretty clear we're not going to get the school district back. The only pressure we have on them is holding their furnishings, a cost they can easily write off. So we resign ourselves to having to figure out all the steps it takes to get incorporated, independently licensed, and funded. Plus, we have to care for the children.

At first I have to do everything. There is a reason I never went in for administration. I hate telling people what to do, and I despise details. However, after two days of this, I resent even more the others not doing their share.

"Eddie. You seem to handle the children really well. Would you like to teach?"

"Sure!" he says, his eyes lighting up. He's a wiry man in his twenties with dark skin, long sideburns, and narrow features. Earldean thinks he's missing a screw, but he seems to really like the children. He plays with them. He rides tricycles with them. He molds playdough with them. He paints with them. He does naturally just what the modern practitioner of the child centered curriculum is exhorted to do by university level Early Childhood Education programs.

Alice has an obvious aversion to children, and Charlene seems indifferent, so, without my having to say anything, they settle in the office and talk to who knows who on the phone. Sue Ann volunteers to do the cooking and cleaning. So, I'm able to concentrate on handling the money such as there is, buying food, preparing sign in sheets and emergency cards, researching the ins and outs of our legal status, buying insurance, recruiting a board of directors from the community, and doing a little teaching in my spare time. My evenings I spend writing proposals, a skill I have to learn from scratch. I've never been so busy, but I have a great sense of purpose and glean a fair share of manic energy from the aura of victory that the continuing existence of the center reflects.

The Day After Labor Day

21.

One more point about the zone of proximal development before I resume the memoir narrative: it is importantly that zone where a student can grasp the concept with a little help. Optimal learning is not a one-person endeavor: it requires a relationship with at least one other person.

Now then, back to our story. From the novel, White Knight, again:

September 5, 1978, the day after Labor Day, begins with a soft orange glow from the Oakland hills. Unlike most days, I have no difficulty getting out of bed. The adrenalin pumping through my system sharpens the senses and clarifies the mind, as cloudless as the sky.

When [Earldean] and I reach the center at 7 A.M. to open it for the day, there are already people milling about the entrance. The plan is to run a "normal" program with whatever children come and to have our allies from the Towers stand around as a vague threat to any movers that might show up. Meanwhile, we've called a press conference for 10 A.M. As I enter the front door which opens onto the large plaza between the two perpendicular towers, I declare, grandly, imagining myself as Fidel entering Batista's office: "This is now liberated territory."

The phone is already ringing. KCBS tapes an interview. The adrenalin loosens my tongue which in other circumstances might be stuck. "We intend to occupy the center for as long as it takes until the school district changes its mind," I tell them.

Children trickle in for the first couple hours, as they normally do. By 9 o'clock, we have about half the normal enrollment, sixteen children, a bit disappointing, but certainly a more than adequate showing. I am of course the only teacher (Leonora being busy preparing to move to Guyana). I call the children to the rug for circle time. I read them "The Rosa Parks Story," written by myself, about the Montgomery Bus boycott. Children seem to understand about buses. We talk about our struggle. "What special day is it today?"

"Halloween," somebody says.

"Christmas."

"August."

Little Barney says, "They close our school."

"Aha. Give that man a million bucks," I say. "Why do they want to do that?"

"No money," shouts Darnell, drooling, not to be outdone by his brother.

"Right! And do they have the money?"

Silence. Latricia's son Ronnie finally says, "Money for war. Not for black people."

"Ten million bucks for Ronnie! Good answer." Some of the children get restless.

"All right, Clarisse. Look at how nicely Dathan is sitting. Now. Do you know why they have money for war but not for black people?"

Ronnie pipes right in, "Black people too dark. They have to sit in the back of the bus because they too dirty."

"Um, not quite, Ronnie."

"'The law's unfair,'" Barney quotes from the story.

"That's good, Barney. They did pass a law, Proposition 13, which was unfair, and that's why they say they're closing our school. But are we going to let them do it?"

"No!" all the children scream together. This part they get.

I start the song. "We shall not, we shall not be moved."

I explain further: "Today, we're going to be on television. People all over the city will be watching us. How do we want them to see us?"

"Good," says Clarisse.

"That's right, Clarisse. We want to show them that the children of [Geneva] Towers Children's Center know how to act. What does that mean?"

"No fighting," says Ronnie.

"No running inside," says Barney.

"No spitting," says Darnell.

"You got the idea," I say. I am nervous that the adult chaos will mirror itself among the children, and what the television people will pick up is how incompetent we are to run our own school. I bite my scruples and resort to the kind of teaching I generally try to avoid. "People who act nicely while the visitors are here will get a cookie. But, if you do act up, you'll sit all afternoon, got that?" I'm taking no chances.

[Tessie] flies into the room. "They're here! The movers are here!"

"Oh shit," I say out loud, forgetting where I am.

"Ooooo," say the children.

"Shoot, I mean." I leave the children where they are and rush to the door. There's about twenty people from the Towers… all standing in front of the door with their arms folded, glowering at two white men in blue coveralls, themselves looking bemused.

I gently elbow my way through the crowd to talk to the movers. "The people here don't want the center closed down," I explain.

"Hey, no problem, man," says one of the movers, a red bearded man with a pot belly.

"We get paid anyway. We'll just tell them we didn't want to start a riot."

"Just tell them the people wouldn't let you in."

"Great. Fine with us." The movers turn on their heels and return to their truck.

The crowd applauds them. First victory of the day.

By the time I get back inside the center, the children are all over the place, writing on the wall with crayons, spilling paint, riding the tricycles, and two TV stations have arrived with all their equipment. Fortunately, the press and the children are in separate rooms, though the rooms are joined by large open doorways. The parents -- [Tessie], Latricia, Charlene, Alice, Sue Ann -- are all just standing around in awe of the two celebrities, live on the scene reporters well known from the local news shows, one of them a weekend anchorman. I do my best to contain my fury. "Could you help with the children please?" I say to Charlene, my eyes flaring.

She flares her eyes right back at me and says, "I'm not your slave," loud enough for the news people to hear.

The others, who've heard this exchange, suddenly busy themselves talking with the press.

In desperation, I retrieve [Earldean] from the kitchen, where she is busily preparing spaghetti for the children's lunch. "We need some help with the kids," I say.

"Where are all the others?" she asks.

"Busy with the news people."

[Earldean] clicks off the stove and enters the room where the children are. "All right, you guys," she says in a tone which is at once scolding and friendly. "It's time to come to the tables. Let me see who can sit down quietly by the count of three. 1...2...2 1/2...2 3/4...3! Very good, you all made it." In no time, she has the children sitting nicely at the tables, playing with Leggos, playdough, or coloring on paper. Once again, she has saved the day.

In the other room, a third TV station has arrived with its people, and the press conference is about to start without me. Latricia reads the press release we finished last night. She stands tall, dressed in a tailored beige pants suit. She finishes: "The parents are determined to occupy the center until the school district changes its mind. This is our center. This is our community. We will not close." The other parents applaud.

There are questions. "Isn't it true that all the children have been transferred to a nearby center?"

I answer, "That center is nearly a mile away, up hill, through some one of the roughest public housing projects in the city."

Another newsman asks, "How many of the children have stayed behind? It doesn't look like you have a full house here."

I answer, "About half the children came to this school today. We don't know how many went to the new school. Some parents may be waiting to see what happens."

A third reporter asks, "The district says its short of money because of Proposition 13, and you people should be targeting Sacramento instead of them. They say their hands are tied."

I start to answer, "We think they have the money..."

Latricia interrupts me. "[Henry]! Let the parents speak."

"...but you should hear from the parents," I smile, aware I have once again made a mildly racist faux pas, but I'm used to being chastised for this domineering habit and give in good- naturedly.

Latricia speaks sharply, "Let them go to the state for money. We don't care where they get it. We see our job as demonstrating to the whole state that no matter what cutbacks they've perpetrated by passing their racist tax law, we are determined that this center will not be one of them. How many black people do you think benefitted from this so called 'tax relief' measure? How many blacks are homeowners? Ten percent? Twenty percent? How many landlords will now reduce rents? Somebody's got to draw the line somewhere, and we're drawing it right here. We're just saying 'No, you can't do this.'" Again the other parents applaud. Latricia has been brilliant.

"What's the next step?" another reporter asks. "Suppose the school district refuses to back down?"

[Tessie] grabs the floor. "There is no next step. This is the last step. The parents will occupy this center until hell freezes over if necessary. This is our center. This is our community." She tries to take her line back from Latricia, but she is nervous, and her oratory falls flat.

The cameras pan around the center, take a few shots of cute children working intently with the playdough, and begin to pack up their gear.

"What time will this be on?" Alice asks in her gruff voice.

"Probably 6 o'clock," says Channel 5.

"6 o'clock," echo the other two channels.

The rest of the day runs smoothly, powered by our elation at the mornings' victories with the movers and with the press. At 6 o'clock, we all crowd around the TV in Alice's messy apartment, flicking through the channels, looking for ourselves. Alice's walls are painted dark brown with an eye level strip of mirror tiles, numbers of which have fallen down. The formica table -- just like ours -- is covered with dishes full of breakfast's leftover Fruit Loops. Her dirty laundry is piled on the orangish (once orange, now brown) couch. She doesn't bother apologizing.

There is news of Carter meeting with Sadat at Camp David, news of another point increase in the cost of living index, up to 12%, news of a new detergent that can make your clothes whiter than white. There's news of some disgruntled people complaining that Jim Jones is keeping their relatives in Jonestown against their will. Finally, there we are, on all three channels at just about the same time, each for about 15 seconds. Flicking rapidly back and forth, we see that one channel shows the children and remarks at our stubbornness, another has me being interrupted by Latricia, and the third shows most of Latricia's fine speech.

"Shit, is that all?" Alice complains.

"Hey, that's a lot," I say. "We did good. We're gonna win this."

My words are punctuated by a short group sigh which mixes people's various levels of hope and skepticism, and translates to a highly tentative "maybe."

The Zone of Proximal Development

20.

I want to figure out how to integrate my current thinking about schools into this narrative, but for now, I will just jump cut.

It is now February 2010. In the past month, I must have interviewed 50 people to work as tutors in the Oakland Parents Together tutoring program, funded by No Child Left Behind. Since we don’t have much of a training budget, I use these interviews to do some training. I talk about the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky). I say, “This is a fancy way of saying, if you give a students work that is too easy, they won’t learn anything new. If you give students work that is too hard, they will become frustrated and won’t learn anything new. The art of teaching is in finding this zone for each student.”

I continue: “Sadly, the schools have stopped utilizing this concept and now teach standards instead of students. Every teacher at every grade level (at least K-5) is required to be on the same page of the reading program” (I know this is true of Oakland; I don’t know about other districts). “Interestingly, this practice does increase test scores by targeting instruction to those mid-level students who score at the 45th percentile or so, and moving them up past 50, which is considered ‘proficient’ – students for whom the standards are actually in their zone of proximal development (ZPD). But it also leaves the vast majority of students in Oakland who are below basic or far below basic way behind, scratching their heads. This is where we (OPT tutoring) comes in.”

After about the 40th time repeating this spiel to my prospective tutors, a light bulb went off. Why do we tolerate this? This is a ridiculous way to teach. It’s essentially triage, sifting through the wreckage of the school system for the few who might have a decent chance of “surviving,” writing off the rest.

When I shared this story, a friend of mine reminded me that the scripted reading programs were introduced for three half-way decent reasons. One, so that the large number of students in Oakland who moved from school to school would not be lost; two, to make sure that flatland (poorer) students were exposed to the same standards as hill (richer) students; and three, to compensate for the fact that students in the flatlands tended to be served by more inexperienced teachers, who would be helped by the script.

I should also add that there are a handful of superteachers who can teach the standards and at the same time differentiate instruction for those who are not yet ready for standards level work. But, from what I understand, the differentiation happens rarely.

One thing I like about the concept of the ZPD is that it can be applied to almost any situation. It implies that in every situation, there is always an optimal way forward based on understanding what we know and what’s the next thing we need to know. In particular it can be applied to the situation in the schools. We know that the 70s and 80s tried many innovations collectively described as “individualized instruction.” Many children were left behind, so the system shifted focusto the point of obsession on the standards. Individualization tended to give too many students work that was too easy; standards obsession gives too many students work that is too hard. The new ZPD would include standards instruction along with a massive effort to reach students where they are. Tutoring can do this, though it often doesn’t. Tutoring programs need to develop best practices and agree to follow them, rather than rely on the haphazard approaches presently operating. Bringing back teacher aides would be another helpful approach with the additional benefit of providing parents with employment in the schools.

The vision we have for schools is that the K-12 program will embrace the most significant reform program that came out of the Civil Rights Movement: namely, Head Start: (1) Small adult-student ratios, (2) Hands-on, constructivist learning, (3) Collegial, friendly relationships between teachers and parents. We will expound further on this vision later.

White Knight

19.

The true test of my political mettle as an independent activist was not long in coming. In November 1978, the voters of California passed Proposition 13. I campaigned against it, but once Governor Jerry Brown saw the writing on the wall and came out in favor of it, I knew our goose was cooked as far as school funding went. Little did I know how cooked, that 30 years later, we’d still be struggling just to keep our position as 49th out of 50 in per pupil spending.

Geneva Towers Children’s Center had been open for 3 years, and by the spring of 1979, it was on the chopping block as one of the cuts mandated by the new Prop. 13 fiscal environment.

Just a year earlier, Children’s Center teachers had won salary parity with elementary school teachers, a tremendous victory, sullied only slightly by the fact that it was done in order to transfer “surplus” elementary school teachers into the Children’s Centers. Finally, Early Childhood Education was being treated with the respect it deserved.

Earldean and I swung into action around this struggle. I had persuaded her awhile back to get a job in Children’s Centers herself. She was a natural for the job. It had bothered me that she was essentially a maid for a liberal doctor. “They treat me like an equal,” she said.

“Oh, yeah? What do they call you?”

“They call me Earldean”

“And what do you call them?”

She got quiet. “Dr. So-and so. Mrs. So-and-so.”

“My point exactly.”

It didn’t make sense for her to quit after 20 years, since they had provided her with medical insurance and a generous retirement plan. But she did adjust her hours so that she could work in Children’s Centers part time.

We called a meeting of the parents to discuss the closing. I had chosen a woman, Tessie Ester, to be the parent chair, I suppose in all honesty because I was attracted to her. She had creamy caramel skin, a fine thin body, and wore her hair with a Donna Summer “fall,” a wig-like thing that hung halfway down her back. She came to the meeting high as anything, and the other parents had to take over for her.

But we, Earldean and I, developed a team of parents willing to fight for the center.
Over the summer, we put together a coalition to keep our center open, Parents for Quality Education. We have a founding meeting in the Towers rec room with Rev. Cecil Williams speaking. We develop a resolution for the school board to exclude Geneva Towers from the school closings. We find sponsors on the board. We call for a rally at the board. Much of this struggle I’ve already written about in my novel, White Knight, or How I Came to Believe that I was the One Who Caused the San Francisco City Hall Killings and the Jonestown Massacre. Obviously, the “I” in the title wasn’t me, but a character, Barney Blatz, based on me. But the school board meeting was true to life. Here is how the novel portrayed it:

The evening of the rally, the fog fails to come in, and the mid July dusk is balmy. The rally is huge, wildly exceeding my expectations, and I'm giddy with excitement. I am the Leader. I can't believe this. I have always wanted to be popular, and now it seems I can do no wrong.

[Earldean] tries to warn me. "It's just a rally, [Henry]. It's not the revolution," she says as she sees me flitting about the various constituencies like a mad general.

We form a long picket line in front the decaying old school building that houses the administration offices and the auditorium where the board meets. "Building does not meet earthquake safety standards," says a sign on the door.

Our center has turned out in force. Latricia, our spokesperson before the board, her natural cut sharply, styled so it sits on her head like a helmet, is ecstatic. "We've won, [Henry!]” she beams at me.

It does feel like we've won. We've been spending the weeks before this meeting lobbying board members, and we have assurances from four out of the seven that they will vote to keep our center open.

Alice, the deep voiced militant, overweight,sloppy, rough, and irrepressible, is leading the chants with her baby in a stroller. Her twins, along with the other Towers' children are upstairs in the childcare arrangement we organized in a room next to the auditorium. "Keep the center open!" she shouts into the bullhorn, a device I "liberated" from the Party in the course of the split.

Sue Ann, from the South, slow and solid, light skinned with reddish permed hair, and [Tessie 's] buddy Charlene, dark, with a permanent scowl, are also taking leading roles, passing out fliers and picket signs, many of which were painted by the children in the school during the previous week.

We march up the stairs and into the board room singing "We Shall Not Be Moved." We sing it over and over again, in defiance of the board president's gavel. Finally we decide to let them conduct their business. It's a reflection of our power and our imminent victory that they vote immediately to hear our motion first, put forward by the one black board member, to exclude Pacific Towers Children's Center from a previously adopted resolution calling for the closure of several sites.

Our first speaker is [Henry, Tessie's] son, probably the youngest person to ever address the board. "Don't close our school because I like to play in the doll corner," he says to wild applause.

We rehearsed each of our three child speakers to say something different, but in the heat of the TV lights, Clarisse and Ronnie get nervous and just repeat what [Henry] has said, "I like to play in the doll corner."

Then Latricia speaks, graciously thanking the board in advance for its rational approach to the problem.

[Tessie] informs them in no uncertain terms, that "our center will not close."

I speak next, delivering what I consider the piece de resistance: "Members of the Board of Education, I am pleased to inform you that we have met with the management of Pacific Towers Apartments, and they have agreed, in writing, to waive all rent for the facility, and to provide maintenance free of charge." We have kept this nugget secret to enhance the effect of the surprise. The crowd, our crowd, cheers tumultuously.

Following our presentation, the board's legal adviser, a black man who talks as though his mouth were full of gravel, speaks. "It is not possible to reconsider this motion at this time. The resolution which this present motion seeks to amend was a subsection of the resolution which passed the budget for the entire school district. The only way to consider such a motion would be to rescind the vote on the budget resolution and that would be illegal because the deadline for approving the budget has already passed."

The board acts as if nothing has happened and moves onto the next agenda item, a surprise resolution to send emergency layoff notices to about 200 teachers.

"What happened?" [Tessie] asks me frantically.

"I think we just got shafted." I run up to talk to our staunchest ally, the black woman on the board. She tells me she's sorry, but she has done all she can.

My spirits suddenly plummet from stratosphere to substrata. By the time I figure out that the only thing for us to do is to disrupt the meeting, the union president is making his own urgent plea for the board not to lay anybody off. It's too late to do anything. We all trickle out of the meeting so disconsolate that no one notices that my name is among the list of those to be laid off, even though I have nine years seniority with the district.

Break-up 2

18.

In late 1976, 14 black Marines at Camp Pendleton near San Diego allegedly attacked a group of white Marines who were allegedly a part of the Ku Klux Klan. They were in the process of being railroaded into prison when the PLP began developing a campaign to free them. “Free the Camp Pendleton 14” became a major party initiative, and we did a creditable job of building a coalition with such rival groups as the National Lawyer’s Guild, the NAACP, and People’s Temple. We organized a sizable march in the town of Oceanside, on the coast between Los Angeles and San Diego where the base was located, bussing people in from the Bay Area and Los Angeles.

“Roots” made its television debut about this time. Our newspaper,Challenge, led an attack against it for preparing middle class, nationalistic blacks to be the new “Judenrat,” referring to the council of Jews who ruled such places as the Warsaw Ghetto. Many of us had a tough time stomaching this line. The word “Judenrat” itself sounded viciously anti-Semitic to me, though it was being put forth by Jews in the PLP leadership. It occurs to me now that people with a familiarity with Yiddish might hear the word differently.

I wrote a response to the review, declaring that the showing of “Roots” with its unstinting portrayal of slavery and resistance actually represented a reform of the media, but that the ruling class still determined the parameters of debate: militancy along black nationalist lines was now considered “safe” by the rulers because it represented no real threat, while militancy along multiracial class lines was still simply not discussed.

The Camp Pendleton 14 Coalition even managed to get the endorsement of “Roots” author Alex Haley, but that sort of breadth of the coalition was too much for the national leadership of the PLP, and they accused us of “uniting with the enemy.” They insisted that we disband the coalition. The west coast leaders, Hari and Jim D., refused, and were forthwith expelled from the party.

The Party chairman, Milt Rosen, flew out to San Francisco and there was a large meeting of the party and its friends. Our side defended its united front approach by reading from Lenin’s “Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder.” The other side attacked us for bringing a couple members of the Camp Pendleton 14 to the meeting, about which Milt said something like, “It’s a shame to use these ‘chaps’ this way,” which had our side calling him racist. Within a week, about 70 PLP members – about ¾ of the total membership in the Bay Area (probably about 15% of the national membership) – submitted letters of resignation.

So began another phase our lives. The split was heart-wrenching in some ways. Former friends were on the other side of the line. But it was enlightening, too. For the first time in a long time, I found it necessary to think for myself politically.

As happens in splits of this kind, some people dropped out of politics all together. But some of us kept meeting in a loose network of study groups. I think we called ourselves "the process." I was in a study group that actually read Das Kapital, and even understood some of it, enough so that when the leader stepped down, he asked me to lead it. I managed to do this through the first volume, even though the material was above my head. What I got from the book was a profound sense of how capitalism was completely disconnected from the commodities it produced, being focused only on the surplus value – profit – the commodity produced in the market. Meaning that this was an essential component of capitalism, that the entire endeavor of capitalism existed only to create surplus value. In other words, it ultimately couldn’t be reformed: trying to get capitalism to serve the needs of people was a futile exercise, though through continuous struggle, you could soften the blows of exploitation.

You could see this clearly in the crisis of 2008, in which we are still wallowing. In order for the entire system not to collapse, the banks and financial sector had to be bailed out before anything else. If Obama or whoever had failed to bail out Wall Street, I’m convinced that the US would have quickly descended to the level of Germany after World War I, and the capitalists would have been pretty much forced to find their Hitler in order to survive.

As in the 30s, the current depression-like conditions are precipitating a polarization between those forces who will fight to save capitalism at all costs, and those beginning to realize that for people to flourish once more, we need to build an alternative to capitalism.

Meditations on Integration

17.

I have to hand it to the San Francisco Unified School District. For all the grief I put them through as a substitute, organizing parents, disrupting their public meetings, helping to bring radicals into power in the teacher’s union, they went ahead and finally hired me. True it was only part time, and it was at a lesser rate than an elementary teacher, but it was a real job as a teacher in the after school program run by the Children’s Centers department. I still had my share of discipline problems. It took me a couple of years before I learned how to force a large group of kindergarteners to take a nap. But the staff and the administration were not as uptight as in the K-12 system, the adult-child ratios were better, and the curriculum was friendlier to children, full of lots of play.

I worked in the annex to a church for just a few months before an even more exciting development occurred: the school district decided to open a child care center in Geneva Towers itself. Since I already lived there, I was the first teacher hired for the new program. Now I could ride the elevator to work! Starting a program from scratch with all new materials was also thrilling. We had a good team. Mary Moore was the head, and and Lorene and Sally and none other than my good friend Deloris Wilson, a powerful black woman who was also active in Jim Jone’s People’s Temple.
Ever since those early ecstatic acid trips, my favorite piece of music was “Meditations on Integration” by Charles Mingus http://s0.ilike.com/play#Charles+Mingus:Meditations+On+Integration+%28Or+For+A+Pair+Of+Wire+Cutters%29:1862152:m1931645 which debuted at the Monterrey Jazz Festival in 1964. It’s a rollicking piece that starts off with a melody, descends into chaos, and culminates in an explosive profusion of melodies. To me, it captured every nuance of the concept of integration, racial integration to be sure, but psychic integration and the integration of one’s life as well.

My life with Earldean in Geneva Towers was approaching the kind of integration I’d been seeking. I was with a woman who fully shared my politics; my living, political organizing, and work life were all of a piece, working together like Mingus compostion. A few years later, some guy called me “the most integrated guy in San Francisco,” by which he meant racially, and I beamed at the compliment.
“Unburdened” of a wife who didn’t share my politics and whom the party didn’t support, I threw myself into the “struggle for communism” as we were starting to call it (we planned to skip the socialist stage). Earldean and I sold more Challenge’s – about 30 a week – then anyone else, and we were made circulation managers for the city. I got on the city committee, a leadership post. We were even among the few comrades who were able to organize “communist cells,” as the party line called for. I remember Hari saying, “You and Earldean are the only people carrying out the line,” a line I later learned Hari didn’t support.

I started a new novel. I had abandoned my first attempt, Come Over the Mandalan Freeway, when Sasha disparaged my work when we first got together. I’d written one short story about the guy killed during the oil worker’s strike, and a few things for children. The new novel was to be about Earldan’s life, called Sister of the Revolution. It described how she lost her faith when she caught her father molesting her mentally retarded cousin. It wasn’t very good, but the energy I got from writing it led me to conclude that activists like myself were the ones who needed to write the fiction, do the art for the revolution, as non-activists weren’t sufficiently in touch with the masses. I believe this thought comprised my first published letter to Challenge.

Earldean moved in with me, followed by her 18 year-old son, Richard, who worked at the local gas station. He was a wizard with cars, always willing to help anyone who asked. Benjy and Zena came every weekend. I was determined to stay close to them, to not allow the divorce to hurt them too much.

There was a telling moment on our first Christmas in the Towers. Benjy was born December 7, and like most December babies, tends to get screwed out of presents. I gave him a walkie-talkie for his birthday, which was more expensive than I could really afford, working part time. So I told him it would be a combined Chrismas-birthday present. Come Christmas itself, I got Zena a Viewfinder with all her favorite Winnie-the-Pooh stories on it, and I got Benjy a Velcro dart board. When he saw his present, he burst into tears, and my heart broke. I picked him up and held him while he cried.

One of the first things I discovered upon being hired by Children’s Centers is that aides in the program were restricted to working three hours per day. This seemed patently unfair. I decided to file a grievance. The grievance procedure didn’t require going through the union, but we did notify them. We gathered about 15 different aides from different sites for a meeting with Christine Simmons, head of Children’s Centers. The union rep showed up. People testified as to how difficult it was to survive on 3 hours pay. We had to go one more level in the grievance process, but we won, the restriction was lifted. Aides were now allowed to work 6 hours per day. What was unique about the victory was that it was really mine. I just saw an injustice and did what I could to right it. My heart began to flush with confidence, a new experience.

Break-up 1

16.

My victim-cum-cause-célèbre status suited my desperate need to feel central to something, to matter. To be significant. To make a difference. While Sasha and the kids were in Palo Alto, I took the opportunity to attempt to initiate an affair with my comrade, Lena, a fellow substitute teacher, with dark hair and dark eyes. If my experience is typical, the statistics regarding extramarital affairs are exaggerated, probably by male wishful thinking. It’s not that easy. A married man on the make is one of the least attractive creatures on the planet. I wrote her a sappy note telling her that it was she, not Sasha, that I loved. She must have been curious, because she did meet me for a drink at a Persian themed bar in the Haight, where I whined about how hard it was to live with someone who doesn’t really share your politics. She reported me to our club leader Kathy, and we spent the better part of our next meeting excoriating me for “sexism.”

At the end of the meeting, Kathy drove me home. I was contrite about my bungled attempt at an affair. Finally, I asked her point blank: “Do you think my relationship with Sasha is holding me back politically?”

She hesitated. “Yes, Henry, I do.”

That settled it in my mind. I waited a few more weeks until the semester was over. I took the van camping by myself to Point Reyes, and commiserated with myself among the desolate sand dunes. I decided to leave.

My return was awkward. I got home just in time for dinner, for which I had invited a teacher friend, someone I was trying to win to the party, building a base. So we went through the motions of this dinner, me knowing my decision, Sasha clueless. When the friend finally left, I told her. “I’m leaving you,” I blurted.

“Okay then. Leave.” There was hysteria in her voice, but she was in control.

It was late at night. I had nowhere to go.

I was hoping for break-up sex, but she made me sleep on the couch in the living room.

In the morning as I packed up my stuff, my knot of coldness took hold of me and I played B. B. King on the phonograph: “The Thrill is Gone,” an act of gratuitous cruelty. I suppose it made me feel better to vent whatever residual anger I might have had at her for not being the party wife I needed.

I stayed on a friend’s floor for a few nights, feeling numb. Finally I got the bright idea to rent an apartment in Geneva Towers, an all black housing project near the school where I had been teaching. My contract was up at that school, but I reasoned that if I could organize parent support again, I might be able to keep the job.

Geneva Towers was originally built as a low- and middle- income, racially integrated complex by an idealistic developer named Eichler who'd made millions building relatively interesting tract houses in the Palo Alto area. But the unpleasant winds, the unusable balconies, the too small rooms, and the frequent elevator breakdowns -- along with some spectacular apartment fires -- drove the middle-income people out. The developer, or at least the corporate entity which fronted for him, went bankrupt, and the federal government took over the mortgage. Meanwhile, thousands of blacks were being displaced by ambitious redevelopment projects in other areas of the city, and it wasn't long before the Towers became virtually all black.

My party club leader Kathy wondered if I wasn’t being “missionary” by moving into such a place, but the party leader said it depended on my attitude. My attitude, being that the move would help me keep my job, was essentially self-serving, therefore not missionary.

I used experience moving to the Towers in a novel I wrote years later called White Night, or How I Came to Believe that I was the One who Caused the San Francisco City Hall Killings and the Jonestown Massacre. Rather than cannibalize it, I’ll quote from it. The novel is written in the first person from the point of view of my autobiographical character, Barney Blatz, but interspersed with sections in the second person that are more of a reflection of his subjective state.

"You are a man driven by an anxious compulsion to know what is real. You take Mao's dictate that reality can only be known by acting upon it to the extreme of a constant, restless, and sometimes reckless activity. The minute you stop acting, the anxiety catches up with you and threatens to overwhelm your ability to act forever. Therefore, when your first wife tries to slow you down and get you to at least consider your family responsibilities in your revolutionary deliberations, you act against the anxiety that gives your life it's unreal cast; you act against the feeling that you are not doing enough to keep the world from collapsing around you; you act against the sense that you will suffocate in your own fear if you don't keep moving; you act in line with your understanding that reality must be constantly tested. You leave. You leave your wife, you leave your children, you leave your home to pursue the struggle on the front lines. You move into this all black housing complex thinking you will organize 'these people' for the revolution. 'Divorce, revolution, suicide, it's all the same thing,' your father has written you regarding the break up of your marriage. You think of yourself as an expatriate living in the Black nation. You can't imagine what they think of you, a lone white man invading their turf. It is one o'clock in the morning, and the security guard at the desk by the door is asleep. You are returning from a marathon meeting that put together a newsletter for teachers. You wait for the elevator. When it comes, you notice that all the buttons have been pushed again, a favorite trick of the Towers' preadolescents who roam the hallways even at this hour. The walls of the elevator are covered with burgundy carpeting that must have once looked elegant in a kitschy sort of way, but now the carpet is ragged with knife slashes. You press the button for the 17th floor, even though it is already lit. You wonder as you have before at the fact that there's no 13th floor in such a modern building, at the tenacity of superstition. The elevator goes down. At the first subbasement, there is a garage filled with old cars whose owners no longer much care what happens to them. At the second subbasement, there's another garage, but this one's abandoned and littered with Twinkie wrappers and such deposited there by the swirling winds. Three dark young men with hardened faces and rags on their heads strut onto the elevator, glaring at you with glazed over eyes. Your whole body stiffens with terror, all the worse for you wanting with all your soul not to let it show, yet knowing they can see it in the tremor of your hands. With your fingers, you comb back your sandy hair, parted Jimmy Carter style, as if to reveal intentionally the two inch scar on your forehead above your left eye that you got from a policeman's billy club when you were arrested last year with a group of your comrades for trying to physically eject a pack of uniformed Nazi's from a school board meeting, a scar which makes you look tougher than you really are. You push your wire rimmed glasses up on your nose to enhance your attentiveness. The elevator starts, stops, starts, stops, agonizingly slow, lurching like a stick shift car driven by a student driver. But you are cool. You retreat to a corner of the elevator, pocket your hands, and with a gentle smirk, try to ignore the young men. They ignore you back and exchange high fives with each other as they discuss the basketball game from which they are returning in a lingo you are just beginning to understand. You hope they can't hear the thumping of your heart."

While the first few weeks were scary, in reality I didn’t encounter anywhere near the hostility I expected. In fact, what I got from many residents was an over-friendliness, a nervous obsequiousness which said that “I’m not one of those that doesn’t like whites.” I discovered fairly quickly that the internalized oppression of many Tower’s residents had them still liking whites better than blacks, at least on the surface.

As September rolled around, I found that I wasn’t going to be hired back at Visitacion Valley. I tried to fight it. I got most teachers to sign a petition to keep me. I called a parent meeting in the Tower’s Rec Room and circulated flyers among students as they were leaving school. I also sold Challenge to the parents, possibly not the smartest move. Only two parents showed up at the meeting. The principal attacked me for being a Communist, a charge I could hardly deny, and most of the teachers removed their names from the petition.

One day, I got on the elevator, and there was a black woman I recognized from the party, Earldean Marshall. She was moving into the Towers. I knew her as a sweet but militant woman, shy but fierce when she needed to be. She had warm chestnut skin and a round face like the moon. She wore her hair in a short natural. She had a captivating smile. I asked her for coffee. We sold papers together door-to-door in the Towers and sold a good 30 copies in the time it would have taken to sell 10 hollering in front of Safeway. I took her out to dinner at New Joe’s Restaurant in Daly City near where she worked as a housekeeper for a prominent doctor. We ended up in bed together that night, and a new chapter in my life began.