Days, Nights of Respect move hearts, not brains

By TINA ARNOPOLE DRISKILL

“She morphed from Sweet Shar into She-Ra, the Bane of Bigots and Scourge of Small Minds! Who could have suspected that the shy daughter of the carpet merchant would one day become Mo-High’s own Regent of Respect, the Avenger of Affirmation, the Empress of Equality, the Princess of Parity, the Duchess of Diversity, and the Kick-Ass High Priestess of The Day of Respect!”

Modesto High School English teacher Jim Autry's description is of Sharon Froba, who is currently reaching out to the entire community and beyond by launching A Night of Respect.

A Night of Respect is Froba’s expanded vision of the successful Day of Respect she originated at Modesto High School in 1998. Now a tradition within 4 of Modesto’s 5 high schools, 17 Days of Respect have put a face on area diversity by helping people to be more human. Sharing the stories of those who have experienced personal tragedies and discrimination serves to replace ignorance with knowledge and intolerance with compassion, Froba explains.

Froba cites, “The root of all violence is the lack of respect for others’ anger and pain, believing also, Hurt people hurt people.” She has received hundreds of letters from students, teachers and speakers confirming that the Day of Respect programs are working to make a difference in peoples’ lives.

Looking back over her own 34 years as a teacher has taught her that, “the most rewarding times occurred when I was vulnerable, not stoic; when I got close, not distant; when I listened, rather than lectured; and when I moved the heart, not the brain.”

The second inaugural Night of Respect, hosted by Dr. Robert and Susan Levy and co-sponsored by Wings of Protection, an organization providing community awareness of and support for families of missing persons and victims of violent crime, offered an opportunity for a large number of community members to dialogue and learn from African-American high school students and representatives from PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians, Gays and Transgender), as well as to hear Sue Levy of Wings of Protection drum in prayer and read the words of a father whose son had been the victim of violent crime.

African-American twin sisters, Cheryl James and Shirrelle Shiel, received recognition for initiating Project Success, a 2 1/2 year old program partnering with students, parents and the schools to help minority students succeed in school. The group advocates for students promoting positive identity, self worth and accountability. Students take the focus off blame and finger-pointing as they help themselves and others to do and be all they can be.

Listeners at the Night of Respect learned how Project Success encouraged Iboni James to become the first female African-American president at Johansen High School; how Davis High School senior April Mims learned that she has what it takes up here (in her brain) to be accepted to a top African-American college, where she will pursue a career as an obstetrician-gynecologist; and how Ashleigh Rucker of Beyer High School has overcome the difficulties of Attention Deficit Disorder and the stigma of being a resource student and now focuses upon being on track and graduating.

Participants also heard how Phillip Langlois “came out of the closet” as a gay man six years ago, when a family tragedy made him and his partner (18 years on May 1) instant dads to a 3-year-old son. Langlois’ hope is that their son “will be treated the same way children of traditional families are treated.”

David Barbaree, a second grade teacher and openly gay, fears we are killing the humanity in our schools. He worries about the backlash experienced since the first Day of Respect, when some parents and others vehemently opposed allowing homosexuals to speak in their children’s schools. Although he knew he could pass for straight, he did not feel it was right for him to remain underground. His efforts to help students understand what it is like to be a gay person have opened him up to constant pressure in the classroom, starting even before he ever spoke, when he was told he was “an obscenity” and that it was not “age-appropriate” in the class setting for him to speak about being a homosexual.

Finally, Jeannette Rosenthal, a resource teacher and Day of Respect coordinator at Beyer High School, spoke of her own painful and illuminating evolution as the mother of a lesbian daughter. Although her only child, Julie, knew she was “different” since age 4, she went through the motions of dating, including being engaged to males, and suffered bulimia and anorexia in high school, finally coming out to her family at age 24, when she had completed her education and had a secure support group.

Rosenthal says she cried for a year and a half, feeling guilty over how she might have influenced Julie to become lesbian. She, and husband Jerry, chose not to tell family or close friends during what might be described as a grieving process. PFLAG helped the couple learn to accept and eventually welcome Julie and her partner as part of a very close and loving family. PFLAG also helped Jeannette accept the family pattern of each of her 2 siblings’ 3 children. One of each 3 is gay.

She and Jerry told their family and friends when Julie was pregnant with their “designer grandchild,” now almost 6 years old, and, now, proudly announce that Julie and her partner were the 430th gay couple to be married in San Francisco on February 16, 2004.

ACTION: These stories are but a very few of those to be shared throughout the community. You can offer your living room or back yard for a very interesting and rewarding Night of Respect by contacting Froba at froba@thegrid.net, or by calling 521-7265.

Modestan has a wild ride in India

By LEE RYAN MILLER

Eleventh in a series

January to May 2003 I lived on a ship that circumnavigated the globe. I was teaching political science on Semester at Sea, a program run by the University of Pittsburgh. Some 650 students participated, visiting nine countries and ten ports.

In this series, I present excerpts from my journal and commentary on the societies that we visited.

India is a crowded place, with a population exceeding 1 billion. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the roads. On my first day in Chennai, I took a taxi. A couple of colleagues had an errand to run, and they invited me to come along for the ride.

I probably should clarify the various types of vehicles one can hire. Bicycle rickshaws are becoming rare. I only saw them shuttling people from the ship to the port exit. Outside the port exit, there were countless auto-rickshaws. These vehicles, called “autos” by the locals, are three-wheeled vehicles with the sides open to the air. One can also hire a taxi, which is similar to a taxi in the US, except that you have to negotiate the price, rather than be charged by meter.

There is no equivalent to renting a car in Chennai. The closest would be what the locals call hiring a car. The car comes with a driver, and is at your disposal for a set period of time—usually five hours or ten hours. An auto costs only about $2 dollar per hour. A taxi costs about twice that. A car costs about $10 per hour.

Taxis and cars are usually Ambassadors. These are old-style cars with big fenders and running boards like what you might have seen in the US in the 1940s. They are not that old, however. The company that produces them just has not changed the design very much over the years.

The driver of our taxi honked his horn every few seconds as he wove through the traffic, often getting within inches of bicycles, pedestrians, and other vehicles. All the other drivers followed the same strategy, and the horns created quite a din. There seemed to be no traffic laws. The lines painted on the road indicating lanes seemed to be meaningless ornamentation. Red lights seemed to have no significance whatsoever. Drivers just beeped their horns and kept going. Despite the slow speed of traffic (we could not have been going faster than 20 miles per hour), I was amazed that there were no traffic accidents.

I got a good view of the city on this trip. It is a peculiar amalgamation of modern, old-fashioned, and primitive. There were modern office buildings, buildings dating from the British colonial era, and shacks all mixed together. It was just as chaotic as the traffic.

The city was filthy, with trash everywhere. During my visit, I noticed that if I went outside more than a few minutes, my skin became covered with a coat of grime. Worst of all, it smelled really bad. Not everywhere, but when we crossed the river, it stank like a sewer. The cab had no air conditioning, and we had the windows rolled down, so I got a really good whiff.

The taxi driver took us directly to a store of his choosing, explaining something like “good shopping here.” I assume he got some sort of kickback for bringing customers to this place. We had to demand several times that he take us directly to our destination before he reluctantly put the car back into gear and started going again. There were additional unwanted stops before my colleagues completed their errand and we returned to the ship.

One of my closest friends from college is Indian American. His parents spend six months per year with him in New Jersey, and the other six in Chennai. I visited my friend’s parents, the Ramaswamis, while I was there.

Mr. Ramaswami, a retired engineer for an American multinational corporation, asked me to meet him in front of the American consulate on the morning of March 17. This required me to arrange for transportation.

A couple of days earlier, just after disembarking, an auto-rickshaw driver had offered me a ride. I had declined, explaining that I had left the ship just to make a phone call. The man handed me his cell phone and let me use it for free. Afterwards, he gave me his phone number, and suggested that I call him if I ever needed a ride. His name was Joseph.

I called up Joseph, and he met me outside the ship. Unlike most of the other drivers, Joseph was dressed smartly in slacks and a collared shirt. He explained in decent English that he only drove his auto-rickshaw during the day as a part-time job. At night he was an ambulance driver for the port.

Joseph drove me to the American consulate. This experience was even more harrowing than the taxi ride. The auto afforded a 360-degree view. Motorists were constantly driving between lanes or even on the wrong side of the road in order to get ahead of one another. I was white-knuckled a couple of times in anticipation of a head-on collision with oncoming traffic. But one driver or the other always swerved out of the way in time.

We arrived safely at our destination in half an hour. After we reached the consulate, Joseph let me use his cell phone to call Mr. Ramaswami. Then he waited with me until Mr. Ramaswami arrived in a hired car to pick me up. Joseph did all this for just 100 rupees, or about $2. To my astonishment, Mr. Ramaswami berated Joseph for overcharging me.

Learn more about the District Six Museum: www.districtsix.co.za

• Learn more about Semester at Sea: www.semesteratsea.com

• Read more stories from Lee Ryan Miller: www.LeerRyanMiller.com

• Read installment 1, Modestan gets a peek inside Castro’s Cuba

• Read  installment 2, Modestan observes poverty and inequality in Brazil

• Read installment 3, part 1 of Modestan visits the Amazon Rainforest

• Read installment 4, part 2 of Modestan visits the Amazon Rainforest

• Read installment 5, Modestan Observes Legacy of Apartheid in South Africa

• Read installment 6, Modestan visits destitute South African township

• Read installment 7, Modestan sees beauty and violence in South Africa

• Read installment 8, Environmental protection and poverty at loggerheads in Tanzania

• Read installment 9, Iraq war creates problems for Americans in India

• Read installment 10, Modestan experiences culture-shock at ancient Hindu temple

Next month: anarchy on the streets of Chennai.

Your Elected Officials

• Pres. George Bush (R), 202-456-1414, president@whitehouse.gov

• Vice-Pres. Richard Chaney (R), 202-456-1414, vice.president@whitehouse.gov

• Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, 916-445-2841, governor@governor@ca.gov

• Sen. Barbara Boxer (D), 202-224-3553, senator@boxer.senate.gov

• Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D), 202-224-3841, senator@feinstein.senate.gov

• Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Dist. 18, 202-225-6131, www.house.gov/writerep

• Reb. George Radanovich, R-Dist. 19, 202-225-4540, www.house.gov/writerep

• Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Dist. 11, 202-225-1947, rpombo@mail.house.gov

• State Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Dist. 12, 916-445-1392, senator.denham@sen.ca.gov

• State Sen. Michael Machado D-Dist. 5, 916-445-2407, senator.machado@sen.ca.gov

• Assembly, Greg Agazarian, R-Dist. 26, 916-319-2026, assemblymember.agazarian@asm.ca.gov

• Assembly, David Cogdill, R-Dist. 25, 916-319-2025, assemblymember.cogdill@asm.ca.gov

• Assembly, Barbara Matthews D-Dist. 17, 916-319-2017, assemblymember.matthews@asm.ca.gov