Thursday, February 1, 2007
Public Debates Part Two: Charlestown
The next day, I’m headed to Charlestown High School to meet with Carla’s opponent in the desegregation debate. I’m waiting for the bus when I get a call from the reporter. Turns out she was really fascinated by the League and thinks there is “more to the story.” Rather than rush something to air in time for the public debate, she wants to follow the students she met yesterday to a real competition, meet their families, etc. It sounds good, but we need the publicity for the public debate, too. “Are these ideas mutually exclusive?” I ask her.
She hems and haws for a minute and finally just says, “Yeah. If we run a story on the public debate, we won’t be able to do anything else.”
I agree to the larger story she’s got in mind and tell her I’ll call her tomorrow, as my bus has just arrived.
Along with Southie, Charlestown was the other epicenter of Boston’s busing riots. Much of the area has been gentrified in the last few decades, and rents have skyrocketed, but the population of the high school, situated in the midst of a strip of public housing units, has become largely non-white students from low income families. Entering the school is like invading a castle: I have to circle a five-story building the size of a city block and climb a wide ramp, painted an ugly, peeling orange, that doubles back on itself twice, then either get lucky enough to arrive at the two sets of eight-foot high double doors at the same time that someone is leaving or ring the bell and hope that someone is in the vicinity of the front office.
School just let out about ten minutes ago, so I have to weave my way through dozens of congregated students (generally not an issue, just don’t push anyone) and up five flights of stairs to the debate coach’s classroom to where Ho (not his real name) is waiting for me.
Ho is one of the most senior debaters in the League, having joined his school’s debate team as a sophomore three school years ago. Of the ten tournaments we’ve had since then, I don’t think he’s missed more than one, if any. Two years ago, he was one of the youngest students in the League, fairly new to the English language, and consequently pretty shy. But he kept at it, and although he still speaks kind of slowly and with a pretty heavy accent, his vocabulary probably exceeds that of 75% of native English speakers in the US.
“Heeeey,” he grins broadly when I walk through the door. “You take the day off just to see me?”
“Just for you, Ho.”
“Oh, ha ha. I am so flattered,” he ribs me.
I take a seat next to him, and he (first generation Chinese), his coach (one white parent and one black is my guess, though I’ve never asked), and I (generic white guy) spend the next hour talking about segregation.
Ho has actually done his reading, so he gets a lot of the arguments we talk about right away. His strategy is not to argue in favor of segregation, but rather to contend that integration will happen on its own as the US becomes an increasingly diverse country, and that forcing the issue can actually make segregation worse. He is struggling to put the argument into words, and as he tries to explain back to me, he pauses for nearly two minutes. I’m about to help him along with the English when he says, “How about: ‘Although forced integration schemes were intended to desegregate schools, the have ironically caused more segregation by driving students out of urban school systems.”
Damn. I’m still staring in surprise when he continues, “Students will go to Newton and other suburbs, and it will be like an invasion of minorities all over Massachusetts.” Now both his teacher and I can’t help but burst out laughing.
“Ho, you should use a word other than invasion,” she explains, still smiling. “That has kind of a negative meaning to it.”
“Oh, ha ha, thank you. I do not want the people to throw tomatoes at me!” Seeing us laugh, he continues, “Faneuil Hall, it is just across the street from the market. It would be easy for them to get tomatoes, if they do not like my speech.”
“One more question, before you go,” Ho’s teacher asks. “He asked me whether he should dress up, and I told him to wear a tie.”
“I’m not going to tell you what to wear, Ho, but I’ll tell you this: I’m going to be wearing a suit. Are you lookin’ to get shown up by me?”
He laughs knowingly, and I’m sure he’ll find something appropriate to wear.
The next day, I call the reporter, who doesn’t have time to talk. There’s been a stabbing at a nearby high school, and she’s going to be covering that all day. It’s frustrating that every news outlet in the state is going to cover this stabbing, but I can’t get a single radio station to do more than one story on something positive that’s going on in the state’s troubled public high school system.
I’m still a little worried about the level of preparation of some of the students, but there’s nothing more I can do about it now. I’ve done my part, and now I just have to hope that eventually their fear of being embarrassed in public will motivate them to put some work into this.
I’m also a little worried, despite her teacher’s assurances, that Carla, who hasn’t been in school all week, isn’t going to show tomorrow. So I’m initially relieved when I answer my phone at about 9PM and hear her voice say, “Andrew, I’ve got a question about tomorrow.” However, it’s more than a little discouraging when the next thing she says is, “What side of the debate am I on again?”
Doing my best to remain calm, I walk her through the issue of desegregation again. Her gut reaction is to say it’s stupid for a school system to tell a student she can’t go to a certain school because of the color of her skin (ie the opposite side of the case she’s arguing), so I try to help her think about the possible benefits of integrated schools.
“Like, you get to meet different people and expand your horizons and stuff?”
“Yeah, and when would that be useful?”
“I don’t know, just like, to know more about different types of stuff.”
Hmmm, time for dealing with kids 101: make your examples specific to them. “What do you think it would be like if you were to a school with all Hispanic kids.”
“Hmmm. You mean, like, if you put a whole bunch of Spanish kids in one school, everybody would just act all crazy and stuff?”
“Uh, no, I don’t think that’s what you want to argue.”
“Well, I guess if you never had any experience with different types of people, you couldn’t like, get along with them later.”
“Like if you’re at your job and you have to work with a black person or a white person or something.”
“Yeah, alright, I get you.”
“Remember, Carla, show up early tomorrow morning. We’re going to have some volunteers from college debate teams to help you put the finishing touches on your speech.”
“I’m going to write my speech tonight, Andrew. Sorry to call you so late.”
“It’s alright, you can call me again if you need anything. Whatever time, I’ll keep my phone on all night.” I’m not sure if it’s a good sign or not, but my phone doesn’t ring again.
Stumble It!
She hems and haws for a minute and finally just says, “Yeah. If we run a story on the public debate, we won’t be able to do anything else.”
I agree to the larger story she’s got in mind and tell her I’ll call her tomorrow, as my bus has just arrived.
Along with Southie, Charlestown was the other epicenter of Boston’s busing riots. Much of the area has been gentrified in the last few decades, and rents have skyrocketed, but the population of the high school, situated in the midst of a strip of public housing units, has become largely non-white students from low income families. Entering the school is like invading a castle: I have to circle a five-story building the size of a city block and climb a wide ramp, painted an ugly, peeling orange, that doubles back on itself twice, then either get lucky enough to arrive at the two sets of eight-foot high double doors at the same time that someone is leaving or ring the bell and hope that someone is in the vicinity of the front office.
School just let out about ten minutes ago, so I have to weave my way through dozens of congregated students (generally not an issue, just don’t push anyone) and up five flights of stairs to the debate coach’s classroom to where Ho (not his real name) is waiting for me.
Ho is one of the most senior debaters in the League, having joined his school’s debate team as a sophomore three school years ago. Of the ten tournaments we’ve had since then, I don’t think he’s missed more than one, if any. Two years ago, he was one of the youngest students in the League, fairly new to the English language, and consequently pretty shy. But he kept at it, and although he still speaks kind of slowly and with a pretty heavy accent, his vocabulary probably exceeds that of 75% of native English speakers in the US.
“Heeeey,” he grins broadly when I walk through the door. “You take the day off just to see me?”
“Just for you, Ho.”
“Oh, ha ha. I am so flattered,” he ribs me.
I take a seat next to him, and he (first generation Chinese), his coach (one white parent and one black is my guess, though I’ve never asked), and I (generic white guy) spend the next hour talking about segregation.
Ho has actually done his reading, so he gets a lot of the arguments we talk about right away. His strategy is not to argue in favor of segregation, but rather to contend that integration will happen on its own as the US becomes an increasingly diverse country, and that forcing the issue can actually make segregation worse. He is struggling to put the argument into words, and as he tries to explain back to me, he pauses for nearly two minutes. I’m about to help him along with the English when he says, “How about: ‘Although forced integration schemes were intended to desegregate schools, the have ironically caused more segregation by driving students out of urban school systems.”
Damn. I’m still staring in surprise when he continues, “Students will go to Newton and other suburbs, and it will be like an invasion of minorities all over Massachusetts.” Now both his teacher and I can’t help but burst out laughing.
“Ho, you should use a word other than invasion,” she explains, still smiling. “That has kind of a negative meaning to it.”
“Oh, ha ha, thank you. I do not want the people to throw tomatoes at me!” Seeing us laugh, he continues, “Faneuil Hall, it is just across the street from the market. It would be easy for them to get tomatoes, if they do not like my speech.”
“One more question, before you go,” Ho’s teacher asks. “He asked me whether he should dress up, and I told him to wear a tie.”
“I’m not going to tell you what to wear, Ho, but I’ll tell you this: I’m going to be wearing a suit. Are you lookin’ to get shown up by me?”
He laughs knowingly, and I’m sure he’ll find something appropriate to wear.
The next day, I call the reporter, who doesn’t have time to talk. There’s been a stabbing at a nearby high school, and she’s going to be covering that all day. It’s frustrating that every news outlet in the state is going to cover this stabbing, but I can’t get a single radio station to do more than one story on something positive that’s going on in the state’s troubled public high school system.
I’m still a little worried about the level of preparation of some of the students, but there’s nothing more I can do about it now. I’ve done my part, and now I just have to hope that eventually their fear of being embarrassed in public will motivate them to put some work into this.
I’m also a little worried, despite her teacher’s assurances, that Carla, who hasn’t been in school all week, isn’t going to show tomorrow. So I’m initially relieved when I answer my phone at about 9PM and hear her voice say, “Andrew, I’ve got a question about tomorrow.” However, it’s more than a little discouraging when the next thing she says is, “What side of the debate am I on again?”
Doing my best to remain calm, I walk her through the issue of desegregation again. Her gut reaction is to say it’s stupid for a school system to tell a student she can’t go to a certain school because of the color of her skin (ie the opposite side of the case she’s arguing), so I try to help her think about the possible benefits of integrated schools.
“Like, you get to meet different people and expand your horizons and stuff?”
“Yeah, and when would that be useful?”
“I don’t know, just like, to know more about different types of stuff.”
Hmmm, time for dealing with kids 101: make your examples specific to them. “What do you think it would be like if you were to a school with all Hispanic kids.”
“Hmmm. You mean, like, if you put a whole bunch of Spanish kids in one school, everybody would just act all crazy and stuff?”
“Uh, no, I don’t think that’s what you want to argue.”
“Well, I guess if you never had any experience with different types of people, you couldn’t like, get along with them later.”
“Like if you’re at your job and you have to work with a black person or a white person or something.”
“Yeah, alright, I get you.”
“Remember, Carla, show up early tomorrow morning. We’re going to have some volunteers from college debate teams to help you put the finishing touches on your speech.”
“I’m going to write my speech tonight, Andrew. Sorry to call you so late.”
“It’s alright, you can call me again if you need anything. Whatever time, I’ll keep my phone on all night.” I’m not sure if it’s a good sign or not, but my phone doesn’t ring again.
Labels: boston debate league, narrative, personal, race, urban debate league
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