The Black & Whites ...

They cruise by, and they watch us from the corners of their eyes…

The lines that follow in Springsteen’s “Out in the Street” resonated strongly in my ne’er-do-well youth.  The black and whites are cruising by during Seaside’s Black Lives Matter rally, and there’s plenty more readily available at the command post down the street if needed.  The good news is they’re not needed.  The rally is impassioned, but peaceful, as I sit in the middle of it.   

The young twenties guys with the bandanas and bullhorns are the best.  Maybe they’re new here at the social justice factory.  Because sometimes they have the bandanas pulled up, all revolutionary, I can’t let the man see who I am style.  But other times, they pull the bandanas down to chant something.  Then, one of them pulls the bandana down and goes into Buffalo Wild Wings for a pee break.  Two and a half hours on the front lines of the revolution is hell, at least on the bladder. 

The Foo Fighters are playing on the Bdubs patio loudspeakers.  Times Like These will always take me back to Davenport West High School.  Every Davenport high school senior was transported there to hear Mayor Winborn announce the Davenport Promise was going on the agenda.  It would have guaranteed every graduating Davenport high school student a college scholarship.  That was revolutionary.  We assembled a video with pictures of Davenport kids, set to Times Like These by the fighters of foo, to rouse up the crowd before Mayor Winborn took the stage.  I’ll never forget the kids filing in, Foo Fighters cranked to the max.  Davenport poised and ready to take on the world. 

They (not the kids, the adults) screwed it up.  Because … well, too many Davenporters who cared about education had already moved to Bettendorf.    

The day started in the past.  I walk into the Monterey County Office of Education Board Room to represent Seaside on a tax-sharing agreement on the agenda.  The meeting is running late because there’s a charter school on the agenda.  Been there and done that.  In too many board rooms that look like this to remember.  The charter school guy is poised and responsive.  Taking it to the man; charter school style.  There is no chanting.  The Board approves his request and I clap along with others.      

Most times you watch it from a distance.  A person, team, community or nation at the height of its powers.  Neil Armstrong letting go of the lunar module ladder.  The John Hancock and Sears Tower leap frogging into Chicago’s sky.  Reagan telling Gorbachez to tear down a wall.  The 1980 U.S. Hockey team doing the impossible.  The first Gulf War.  Catherine Zeta-Jones walking down the hotel hallway (Intolerable Cruelty). Madison Bumgarner on the hill in the 2014 World Series.  Kris Bryant, just last night.

Sometimes, you’re part of it.  Vernon Hills, swallowing up land like they ain’t making no more of it.  Saying “I do”.  Prairie Crossing Charter School, in room after room just like the one this morning.  Interviews where you know the job is yours if you want it.  Climbing until there ain’t no more steps up to take.  Cuing up the community to take huge leaps forward.

When preparation and commitment meet, that’s all you really need.  Luck helps in the near term, and being on the right side of the fight helps in the long run, but it’s the preparation and commitment that matters.  The charter school guy this morning.  He was ready.  He was committed.  The Seaside Police Department.  I sat in on part of their briefing this afternoon.  They were ready.  They were committed.  Committed to protecting the rights of those who assembled to passionately take their concerns out to the public, out to the street (but not in the street).

The guys with the bandanas and bullhorns?  I’m not so sure.  Social justice isn’t a fashion accessory.  You want change?  Take off the bandana and be on the record for who you are and what you want.  The bullhorn?  Seems ill-advised to me.  Shouting is a tactic, not a strategy.  Talking works better, and listening works best.