After nearly a year of house-hunting in San Francisco, it’s become very apparent why SFGate.com runs a weekly column called “Surreal Estate”.

All those stories you hear about the crazy real estate market in San Francisco are true. My fiancée, Ramie, and I were outbid ten times during our search for a home until we let go of our preconceived notions about what a house should cost and went with the market.

We’ve been among a frenzy of more than 30 bids on some houses, and we’ve submitted offers that were more than $100,000 lower than the actual selling price. We had the highest offer on a couple of places, only to be turned away because minor details made close, competing offers more attractive.

We were about to give up when we bid more than we ever could have imagined a year ago for a modest, two-bedroom home in the Outer Sunset District. To our surprise, the bid was accepted. Escrow is scheduled to close on March 25.

Our search has given me new perspective on the housing imbalance in San Francisco. Owning a home in the city is difficult for professional people earning a moderate income. It’s nearly impossible for low-income wage earners, at least at market prices. It’s easy to see why San Francisco has one of the lowest home ownership rates of any city in the country.

Owning a home is one of the best investments you can make. For those who want to live in San Francisco, the high cost keeps many from enjoying the benefits of home ownership. Many people who want to buy are forced to move out of the city.

It’s unfortunate because San Francisco is such a wonderful place. In the future, hopefully everyone, not just the privileged few who can afford it, will be able enjoy the experience of being a San Francisco homeowner.

chinoloco

What is the first thought that pops into your head when you think of the year 1954?  A simpler time?  Rumblings of racial unrest? Or do you just say to yourself, “That’s ancient history?”

“Many people can’t imagine 1954. A postage stamp was three cents. The population of the United States was 163 million people, and the world series of baseball was broadcast in color for the very first time.”  

These were the opening remarks of Joe Madison, talk show personality for XM satellite radio and the moderator of “The Voices of Experience,” a community forum and panel discussion that is part of a larger program entitled, “In Pursuit of Freedom and Equality — Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas: The Legacy,” which came to Montgomery College, Rockville Campus, on Tuesday, Feb. 24.

Brown v. Board of Education is arguably one of the most important legal decisions handed down in the past 50 years in this country. In essence, it hailed the beginning of the end of segregation because the Supreme Court judges ruled 9-0 that separate is not, in fact, equal.

On Tuesday evening at the Montgomery College Theater Arts Arena, distinguished educational luminaries and authors who once attended Montgomery County Public Schools gathered and educated members of the local community about what it was like to teach, learn, and live in Montgomery County in the days leading up to and after the ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. Drawing on his own experiences in the post-Brown multi-cultural education (or lack thereof), Mr. Madison cut to the chase with his first question, “Where did all the white people go?”  

The first panelist to answer was Mrs. Doris Hackey, a native of Germantown and a lifetime educator in the area:

“I remember I didn’t see any white people going to Carver (one of the first ‘colored’ schools in the area).  We all went to their schools.  I’m not sure what happened,” she said.

“White people went to the suburbs as far as they could go after Brown. The opposition to integration was really scary. White people were angry, I mean really angry,” said Mrs. Nina Clark, a lifelong resident, educator, and the author of History of the Black Public Schools of Montgomery County, Maryland.

“The white people actually went and built their own school, and it is still standing to this day in Calvert County,” said Mr. Warrick Hill, author of Before Us Lies the Timber: The Segregated High Schools of Montgomery County, Maryland, 1927-1960.

It was enlightening when the panelists were asked whether “colored” schools were equal. The answer was a resounding no.  

The panelists weren’t all heavy-hearted and somber when talking about these things, however. Mrs. Hackey smiled and joked about how there was no playground equipment at the “colored” school, and how they were lucky if they got a ball.  

“I remember playing a lot of dodge ball. And if the ball went in the street and you lost it, no more ball game,” she said.

Some of the panelists recalled the drudgery of walking miles upon miles to school. However, Mr. James Offord, another distinguished panelist, saw it with a little irony. The white children got to ride the bus, but Offord had to walk to his “colored” school.  

“It was two-and-a-half miles to my school, one way. I guess one thing we had over the white kids was that it was excellent exercise. At colored schools you didn’t have many twisted or sprained ankles,” he said as he chuckled.

So how did this group of people manage to succeed  when the odds were so clearly stacked against them in terms of schoolbooks, buildings and other resources?  

“There was a lot of motivation on the part of the parents because they were denied an education,” said Mrs. Clarke. There wasn’t a “colored” high school in Montgomery County until 1927.

A large motivation for African American students after Brown was to show “I’m just as smart as you are,” said, Mr. Offord.  It also probably helped that all students, regardless of race, were entitled to the same quality books, teachers and facilities.  

“We learned more because of shared resources. We were doing things after Brown that we had never done before. Now we can. Brown instigated these things,” said Mrs. Clarke.

“We used adversity as a stepping stone to success,” said Mr. Hill.

In The Fray Contributor

George J. Tenet, head of the C.I.A., today stated to a Senate committee that he has, on several occasions, corrected faulty public statements on intelligence made by President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney

Tenet’s motivation in making such statements could be to save his already damaged hide. Tenet has recently been under enormous scrutiny for his agency’s ability or lack thereof to gather, process and interpret intelligence. The 9/11 attacks produced in the collective American consciousness not only a sense of devastation and vulnerability but also a stunned horror at the intelligence community’s ability to prevent such attacks. I wondered if heads were going to roll, and if Tenet’s would be leading the pack.  

Tenet’s statements, which certainly could not have endeared him to Bush and Cheney, were nevertheless evasive.

Tenet was asked whether he had attempted to correct statements made by the Bush administration in the days leading up to the Iraq war, such as the claim that Iraq’s weapons stock included what could cause a “mushroom cloud.” In a particularly vapid statement, Tenet responded by claiming:  

“I’m not going to sit here today and tell you what my interaction was and what I did or what I didn’t do … You have the confidence to know that when I believed that somebody was misconstruing intelligence, I said something about it. I don’t stand up in public and do it. I do my job the way I did it in two administrations.”

While it may be the case that Tenet is trying to salvage the bruised reputation of the intelligence community and particularly the C.I.A., it is at least heartening to see that the intelligence community is beginning to at least correct, if not censure, politicians who bandy about questionable or disputed intelligence to the public as if it were fact.  

Mimi Hanaoka

There’s this pretty girl I know. She lives on welfare with her grandmother. But project-bound, I see her sashaying down the block in pants designed by Versace. During summertime, she adorns herself with Chanel sunglasses. Here she stands out like a glamourous Sophia Loren against a backdrop of the harshness of the urban jungle. She cannot afford groceries for the next two weeks, but she says, “Damn, at least I look good.”

This is what pyschologists term “status anxiety.” In a time where there are more jobs offering titles than ever before, we are not satisfied unless we exhibit the materialistic ways that predominate the world. For New Yorkers, it’s the cab to work, the brownstone, and a Panamarian called ”Chu-chu.“ It’s the Brazilian and the three-week holiday in the Seychelles. It’s the Botox.

Unless you have the luxury of being heir to a multi-million dollar business empire, however, it’s hard graft. Nights with your brain networking and planning meetings for the morning. Caffeine injections. All of this because you still want more. Because you’re fed images of nothing but the new cell phone with a flip-top camera. The new diet. The fashionable lifestyle.

Of course, we all crave the finer things in life. Yet 33 percent of those in successful careers are also in the psychiarist’s chair seeking therapy. The sentence that seems to be echoed is “I still am not happy … ’til I have more.”

I still see that girl now and then around the projects. I smile. Given the richness of her heart, she is already successful.

In The Fray Contributor

Paul Richardson, the assistant bishop of Newcastle, recently criticized Mel Gibson’s controversial film, The Passion of the Christ, as a violent film that borders on pornography. Richardson went further and claimed that the Lord of the Rings had “stronger religious themes.”

While I am loathe to give Gibson’s film — which has been lambasted as both historically inaccurate and as rife with potentially anti-Semitic material — yet more publicity than it has already received, Richardson’s comment is important in that it underscores the fact that the film should be seen as a meditative piece born of director Mel Gibson’s own religious beliefs and not as an accurate portrayal of historical fact.

As Professor Elaine Pagels of Princeton University, a distinguished historian of the early Christian period, stated:

“It’s important to remember that this is Lent, and meditations on the Passion of Christ are an important part of the cultural interpretation of human suffering. There’s a context for the movie in the history of art. When Christians read the Gospels as historical acts, they will say what Mel Gibson says: that this is the truth, this is our faith. But the important thing is that this film ignores the spin the gospel writers were pressured to put on their works, the distortions of facts they had to execute. Mel Gibson has no interest whatsoever in that.”

The Passion of the Christ is an expression of Gibson’s religious faith; it is neither history nor fact, and to risk misinterpreting it as such would further encourage anti-Semitism inspired by a feeble understanding of history.  

Mimi Hanaoka

As Christopher Allbritton of Back to Iraq and Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo have noted, Ahmad Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress, recently and happily admitted to manipulating the United States. Chalabi wanted to get rid of Saddam Hussein, and with the appropriate “intel,” encouragement and war-mongering, America invaded Iraq.

As Josh Marshall documented in his blog:

“ ‘As far as we’re concerned we’ve been entirely successful. That tyrant Saddam is gone and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important.’

Those were the words last week of Ahmed Chalabi, head of the INC, member of the IGC, and central player in a scandal the scope of which Americans are only now beginning to grasp.

The ‘what was said before’ that Chalabi is referring to, of course, are the numerous bogus claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction he peddled into American governmental channels over the last half dozen years and more.”

The weapons of mass destruction, which were the ostensible reason for America’s rushed entry into war with Iraq, have yet to be found. The upshot of all this is that President Bush got his war, Chalabi got rid of Hussein, and Halliburton began to joyously engage in war profiteering.

Halliburton’s war profiteering is a disgusting example of crony capitalism, but it is important to keep in mind that Iraq suffers from similar problems. Chalabi has his dirty little fingers in every dirty little pie. Crony capitalism is alive and well in Iraq, and Chalabi and his friends benefit from it.  

America helped plunge Iraq into its present chaos. One of America’s and Iraq’s goals must be to eliminate this sort of crony capitalism — both in America and on the ground in Iraq.

Mimi Hanaoka

With Kerry having secured the nomination for the democratic presidential candidate, we can now expect more focused mud-slinging and vitriolic attacks between the two camps — fair enough. Bush and his cronies are war profiteering in Iraq — this is both disgusting and unconscionable. But that Bush would milk the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, for political gain and tactical electoral advantage is deeply offensive.

As Adam Entous reports from Reuters, on Thursday, the Bush team began running television ads, two of which refer to the 9/11 attacks. As Reuters notes:

“One television spot shows the ruins of the World Trade Center behind an American flag while another shows firefighters removing the flag-draped remains of a victim.

The commercials have angered many victims’ relatives, outraged at what they say is an attempt to politicize one of the darkest days in the nation’s history. The Bush administration has defended the ads as relevant and ‘tasteful.’

Despite pressure from Sept. 11 families and firefighters, Bush said he ‘will continue to speak about the effects of 9/11 on our country and my presidency.’”

President Bush no doubt considers his handling of 9/11 as one of the definitive events of his political career, and it is understandable that he should want to “speak about” his response to the terrorist attacks. That he should manipulate this tragedy for personal benefit, against the pleas of victims’ families and against the complaints of the firefighters that rushed to the scene, is despicable and undermines the gravity of the tragedy.

Mimi Hanaoka

“Black People were invented in the 1700s as a form of cheap labor,” reads the second still of a recently published Black History “cartoon.” “In Honor of Black History Month We Give you Blacky Fun Whitey Staring Kunta Kornelius & Steppin,” the cartoon begins. Branded Columbia’s subversive paper, The Fed published this cartoon in its February magazine and distributed it in all campus mailboxes following a series of events targeted both implicitly and explicitly at marginalized student groups.

Just before Christmas break, the Columbia University Marching Band (CUMB) launched a no-holds barred attack toward blacks, homosexuals, Jews and women. Asking “Who needs ethnic studies?” with juxtaposing pictures of Michael Jackson as a (black) boy and a (not-so-black) man, the band succeeded in demonstrating the campus tendency to brand “humor” as offensive jokes almost exclusively at the expense of marginalized minorities.

Similarly, Feb. 6, the Columbia College Conservative Club (CCCC) held an Affirmative Action Bake Sale. A thinly veiled attack on black and brown students at the university, CCCC members sold donuts and cookies at higher prices to white and Jewish students and at lower prices for black, Hispanic, and female students.  

“The worst part of it all is that these people are offending and attacking me on my dime,” said first year Ayana Dion Labossiere. “It’s not enough that I have to deal with the CORE and class, but I have racist people using my money to offend me in my space.”

Second year Chris Johnson expressed a similar sentiment. “It makes no sense that the university takes no proactive steps,” Johnson said. “The same day the administration works on one issue, these student groups are working on something else.”

Numerous student leaders have gathered to work toward affecting change throughout the community. Recently, ad-hoc meetings have been called between university officials and selected student leaders. Students such as Labossiere express a fervent dissatisfaction with the administration’s responses to many of these meetings. Referencing the letter penned by Xue, Labossiere said, “The groups get off too easy. Apologies [if offered] should be public. The event was public, [they] printed racist statements in public, they should apologize [or measures taken discussed] in public too.”

While many of these meetings seem to yield no tangible change, students continue to search for ways to challenge effectively both the administration and the campus community to reach beyond ignorance and establish policies, curriculum, practices, and educational programming aimed at increasing understanding of both race and racism.

“It’s amazing, the amount of things you have to endure on campus as a person of color just trying to do your thing,” said senior Leilani Mabrey Jackson. “To get here you have to swallow so many bitter pills, and then while you’re here, you have to deal with ignorant racists disrespecting you in your own space while the university stands off to the side watching.”

While the immediate future of minority students at Columbia University is far from palpable, a few things have materialized. Black students refuse to be silenced by students, organizations or the administration. Black students have and continue to build coalitions with marginalized populations and progressive student group coalitions both on campus and off. Black students have and continue to need the support of family, friends — this includes alumni associations comprised of black and brown faces who share in our pains in working to combat these and any such possible events.

“Now, with the added power of hippity-hop beats and cool, island rhythms, they spread their message of ‘getting down’ across the nation. Black people do even more crazy crap, but don’t worry about it until next February … and ‘til then, Remember KILL WHITEY!” the cartoon concludes.  

Our fight, our continued struggle, has just begun.

DJ

Born and raised in Texas, I have frequently reminded people that my identity isn’t tied to the geography, that not everyone in Texas rides a horse, is as conservative as President Bush, has an accent, is white, and is slightly off-kilter. It wasn’t until I lived in Chicago and learned about Texas happenings from the national news that some of those stereotypes seemed to make sense from an outsider’s perspective.

When Andrea Yates drowned her five children, people wanted my opinion on the matter since I was, of course, from Texas and therefore must have some connection or opinion on the matter. The same was true when that woman hit a pedestrian and then drove home with him on her hood, leaving him to die. In neither situation did I feel a personal connection, and I certainly didn’t identify with either of the perpetrators. But I would always roll my eyes and say, “We’re Texas,” an incredibly trite slogan that The University of Texas paid someone over $1 million to come up with (I really wish I was being facetious), or “Don’t mess with Texas,” the slogan for a highway clean-up campaign that got co-opted by Saturday Night Live to imply that Texans are gun-lovin’, death penalty-lovin’, Bush-lovin’ folks. I loathe these stereotypes. Although they are descriptive of many Texans, I would like to think that this is not entirely attributable to their location.

But I’ll admit that even I have begun thinking in these terms, and I’m not quite sure how to break free from them. For instance, when I saw the headline ”Some Texans boycott Girl Scout cookies“ on the Netscape homepage, all I could do was roll my eyes and say, ”We’re Texas.“

After all, Girl Scout cookies are seemingly innocuous, and come on, who doesn’t love a Thin Mint every now and then?  Apparently just about every Girl Scout and her mother in Crawford, Texas (home of the Bush ranch).  One Girl Scout troop is down to two members; one Brownie troop is now defunct.

Albeit not shocking in the midst of the culture war being waged on U.S. soil, the dissolution of Girl Scout troops in Crawford and the refusal to deliver cookies the girls already sold can be traced back to sex.

Apparently, the local Girl Scout organization gave a ”woman of distinction“ award to a Planned Parenthood executive and endorses a Planned Parenthood sex education program, which gives girls and boys information on homosexuality, masturbation and condoms.

I suppose that this act of protest is a great way for these women to show their support for their homeboy GW and his abstinence-promotion policy. And maybe Crawford mothers know best. Maybe unsafe sex promotion makes more sense than safe sex promotion (because let’s be honest, people are going to have sex regardless of the machinations of Girl Scout moms and GW).

But it makes me want eat more than my fair share of Girl Scout cookies. And it makes me forget why I even bother trying to defend the Lone Star State’s reputation, particularly when it seems to be the breeding ground for the new dangerous wave of conservatism that is desperately seeking to take hold of the nation. Yep, we’re Texas.

Laura Nathan-Garner

Stir TV, the “first show for and about Asian America’s next generation,” makes its premiere Saturday on the International Channel and KTSF-26 in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The English-language news and entertainment program says it is targeting Asian Americans who were born, raised, or educated in the United States, a group it calls, “trend-setters and pop-culture mavens who are among the nation’s most dynamic and rapidly growing populations.”

A run of 26 weekly episodes of the 30-minute show is planned for the first season.

It looks like the show is trying to be an Asian American version of MTV, which is fine. Until MTV and the entertainment industry become more like Stir TV and diversify their programming, there will be a need and an audience for shows or networks that target an ethnic or racial niche.

chinoloco

Today’s brutal attacks on the Shia in Iraq highlight, in the most gruesome and inappropriate way, the divisions between the Sunni and Shia communities in Iraq and beyond. The occupying coalition forces are being lambasted, particularly on the ground in Iraq, for their failure to prevent today’s atrocities. It is unclear who masterminded these attacks — Iraqi Sunnis, foreign Sunni Islamist groups, and specifically al-Qaeda are all being eyed warily. The motivation of these attacks, however, is clearer — it was likely perpetrated in order to further destabilize Iraqi society, to encourage civil war between Arab Sunnis and Arab Shias, to provoke further fragmentation within the Islamic world and within Iraq, and to encourage Iraqi fury toward the U.S. forces for America’s inability to have prevented these attacks.  

Today’s terrorist attacks, and the increased fragmentation and anger they may inspire, add to the ever-present question of what is to become of the Kurds in the new Iraq.

The timing of the these attacks is both tragic and lamentable — these attacks occurred during Ashura, an important Shia festival of mourning that commemorates the martyrdom of Imam Hussein in 680 A.D. During this ritual, hoards of faithful Shias flagellate themselves with chains and swords to atone for Hussein’s martyrdom.

Had these attacks occurred at any other time, they would have sparked division and fear. Now, with the American occupation of Iraq, the imminent handover of sovereignty from American hands to those of the Iraqis in June, and during this most important Shia festival, Iraq may become home to chaos and horrific sectarian violence.

America is in a worse situation than it has ever been before.  President Bush bullied his way into war and subsequent occupation in Iraq, and the Iraqis — not to mention other members of the international community — rightfully resent the American presence. The reconstruction of Iraq is a hotbed of crony capitalism. If President Bush wants, finally, to do something that is correct and just, he must do his utmost to increase the level of defense, order and security in Iraq and, most importantly, Iraqis need to have a role in this creation of order and security. America stripped Iraq of much of its humanitarian and political infrastructure, and America must now help to rebuild it. Reconstruction, after all, is not all about Halliburton and oil contracts.  

Mimi Hanaoka

In a recent episode of Friends, soon-to-be newlyweds Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) and Mike (Paul Rudd) briefly flirted with the idea of giving the money that they would spend on a wedding to a children’s hospital. But when their friends balked at the idea of giving up a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have a big, fancy wedding, they asked for their money back and eventually began planning their big day. There were moments of guilt and anguish regarding the final decision, but ultimately, in typical Friends fashion, the two decided to put themselves before the less fortunate, at least with regard to their wedding.

But other people are finding a way to both help the less fortunate and have the wedding of their dreams simultaneously. And they don’t have to donate their wedding gifts to do so.

Apparently, an increasing number of programs are training homeless or formerly homeless people in the culinary arts so that they can earn money by helping cater weddings, Bar Mitzvahs and other events. As  Danna Harman writes:

Under the auspices of Community Family Life Services, New Course takes homeless people, former inmates, and recovering addicts through a 16-week culinary course. During that time they get a $60-a-week stipend and on-the-job training in a cafeteria (New Course runs the US Tax Courts cafeteria), in a popular downtown restaurant (”3rd and Eats“), and with the catering operation itself.

More than 300 students have graduated from this training program since its launch 12 years ago, and about 80 percent have found jobs in the culinary field. The catering business, which started seven years ago, is earning $200,000 a year and is beginning to make its mark in the competitive and crowded Washington catering field, taking on everything from 500-person weddings to small ”power breakfasts.“

But the skills learned here go beyond the kitchen, says Jeannine Sanford, director of New Course’s classroom training and employment. Students take classes on self-esteem, time management, work ethics, and team building.

”They are learning how to respect themselves and others,“ says Ms. Sanford, ”… and this will stand them in good stead no matter what they do.“

As a prerequisite to joining this program (and also Fresh Start), enrollees must be sober, have stable living conditions, and be ready to make a commitment to helping themselves. About half of each class drops out before the end of the training, unable to meet these demands, says Mr. Doscher.

Laura Nathan-Garner