bus politics, youth poets, my first (political) house party

today was one of those days that links together random events somehow. or maybe it's just me.

we took the 9 bus downtown to the library, and of course there was a weird little incident. we sat in the front and it was crowded. a man in front of us started complaining about people not moving back. another man told him "you just have to say excuse me, man", and the complaining man was disturbed enough by this comment that he started saying "i don't want to have to touch anyone's ass when i walk by", "don't give me that fucking shit," etc. miles was deep in his yu-gi-oh comic book but maya was trying hard to follow the situation. often these types of comments are returned by people staring at the floor, but on our bus today several folks spoke up. "watch it, there are kids on here", "yeah, the kids on the bus, watch your mouth", and "just don't get on the bus in the first place." maya whispered to me "they said there are children on the bus" and i explained that the people were trying to make the rude man be more polite. she looked around, pleased.

at the main library we checked out the youth speaks poetry slam for a few minutes, during 90% of which i had to wipe my wet eyes. there were teen poetry teams from different high schools. the first one we saw was three girls and their poem was funny but so sharp and intense, with a repeated chorus of "why are americans so distracted" when there were things like the oscar grant shooting and our president ( one girl said "george bush in blackface") sending more troops to fight wars overseas. the second was even heavier, with an amazing teenage boy shouting about how hard it is to be gay in our society while three other teens acted as the haters behind him. the poem ended with him hanging. lots and lots of bad words and passion, miles' eyes bugging out of his head. i think we may have stumbled into two of the best poems as both got very high ratings from the judges. amazing. when we walked out the kids were quiet and then miles said "but c's parents are gays and no one hates them, right?"

we got out of there and on to two playdates. after miles' playdate his friend's dad cajoled us into walking over to a political house party thing for their friend who is running for sf district attorney. i am so unaware of politics, but am slowly learning more as we stay here longer and longer. turns out the candidate is someone we know from another context. i knew a bunch of these people--from friends with kids, the school district, our neighborhood. the candidate is david onek. here is my summary:

*he approaches the job thinking: we need to bring people from different spheres (community, employers, law enforcement) together to collaborate; we need to ask if policies are fair and equitable; we need to do what works and look to other places for best practice

*he thinks san francisco is a place where it is possible to incubate some ideas such as increasing opportunities for youth, convicts, and ex-cons in order to reduce crime

* he is a person who has spent 20 years working with law enforcement as well as youth and community organizations and will be able to build on this background to bring people together

*as far as my own dangerous neighborhood he thinks that people need to feel comfortable with law enforcement so that when there are crimes people will inform on killers and they can be sent to prison (not happening now). the roots of gang warfare run pretty deep, but it could also help if there were more positive things happening for youth.

so anyway, i will vote for him for sure but it is a little hard to hear all these ideas which sound great, coming from a person who is loved and trusted by people i love and trust-- but still know that there are so many roots to crime (from unemployment to old gang rivalries to kids not getting good educations, to kids with many adverse childhood events ,etc etc etc etc) that for anyone it will be an uphill battle trying to make things safer and better.

it did feel good being in a room with all these smart, caring people and to feel connected to them. lawyers, teachers, stanford education researchers, therapists, people who work with youth and family organizations, all their adorable offspring, and...me. and i guess this is how grassroots politics is supposed to work. you go and meet an actual candidate and talk to him and people who want to support him and start thinking about the issues involved. and know there are other good people who have a little hope that things might get better.

quite different from pressing a key to send an email to a senator somewhere.

while we drove home, late, from this meeting, maya asked what a poem was. i gave her some lame definition and she said she wanted to hear some poetry again. i told her we could read a poetry book tomorrow and she was excited. she also made up two poems:

"some fish are red

some fish are blue

some fish sleep in a beautiful pool"

"some fish are blue

some fish are red

some fish sleep in a lovely bed"

oh, my little girl, she is so deep!

nighty night