It’s been a few days since I’ve posted anything substantive about the 2020 election results on my social media, I’ve been pretty hunkered down.

I was so caught up in finishing strong volunteering for various candidates I support, that I haven’t really had time to process a lot of the news that’s been flowing nonstop.

After the clock struck 8pm on Election Day, I’ve been wrapped up in the tension of the ballot counting at every level of government that I haven’t fully had time to process everything that’s unfolded in the last few days.

There is still a razor thin race in my neighborhood for who will represent me and my fellow Richmond District neighbors at city hall (and I’m rooting for you Marjan Philhour!) and the math is looking increasingly positive for us to finally rid ourselves of Trump and restore some decency and liberal policymaking to the White House with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris (though I refuse to feel good until Trump has lost every legal appeal and the results are certified by the authorities).

However the thing I want to focus on for a brief moment is the smallest of elections that happened in my hometown of Walnut Creek, California where a family friend of mine, Christopher Grove, ran AND WON a seat on the Acalanes Union High School Board 🥳

I’ve known Christopher since my brother, Niki Esfandiari became friends with him after we moved to the eastern side of Walnut Creek in 2002. As Niki and Chris became friends, I got to know Christopher’s older sibling, Lilyth Grove, and we all became tight friends as well throughout middle school, high school and beyond.

The Grove family has been good family friends of the Esfandiari family for well over 18 years at this point, and we’ve had a lot of laughs, and good times along the way.

However when Christopher texted me earlier this summer out of the blue and sorta dropped the news that he was going to be running for a seat on the Acalanes Union High School District board, the same school district that included Las Lomas High School where he and I and all our siblings went to school…I don’t know how to say this…I was absolutely ecstatic and caught off guard 😍

I’ve worked for one campaign (Obama 2012), and volunteered for at least a dozen campaigns since 2012, and while I had volunteered countless hours to people in my life who I had met through friendships or introductions, I had never had someone in my life, so close to my childhood decide to pull papers and run.

Christopher’s story is the story of so many people just trying to make it in this world and do good deeds along the way. He was a good student, yet one that struggled in our underfunded schools like myself and so many others. He ended up going to the same university as me, Santa Clara University. After graduating, he joined Teach for America. Then he got his Masters in education policy and went to teach in Stockton, CA for a few years focusing in particular on special education.

I always knew that Christopher was going to do great things in his life journey, but it never really dawned on me that he would pull papers and run for public office. In our conversations I gave him what knowledge and advice I had from my previous campaign experiences, I donated to his campaign (I even got the shirt!) and since we were in a pandemic and I wasn’t exactly comfortable with trekking back to Walnut Creek, I made a point of pressing my parents to volunteer for Chris and to spread the word about him. They reached out to everyone in their networks and while they probably didn’t know it, they were practicing the power of relational organizing in real time.

While I stayed focused on the volunteering I had to do here in San Francisco for the candidates I was supporting, Chris put his shoulder to the wheel. He put out a positive message centered on the students and communities he wanted to lift up as a school board member and how he wanted to work to improve our educational system, the one that he and I are both rooted in.

He took some of my advice around building a volunteer driven field operation that would ensure that by the end of October, most voters would have heard from him at least once. He even got my brother to volunteer in local politics, and that’s no easy feat! Throughout it all Christopher made a point of reaching out to every group he could get ahold of within the district and made a good faith effort to pitch them on his values, his vision and why he felt he would be a great member for the school board.

He ultimately ran a campaign that his family, friends and colleagues could be proud of, and lo and behold the voters of Contra Costa County saw fit to elect him to represent them on the Acalanes Union High School District.

I’m not 100% sure, but I’m fairly positive he’s the youngest board member they will ever have, and someone who is uniquely qualified for the role and who came to it not with a desire to springboard to higher office, but with a deep passion for the students of the district and the people who work to teach them.

I’m so proud of Chris, and while this was one of the campaigns that I was minimally involved in this cycle, it’s one of the brightest spots in the results from Tuesday night in my book.

The beauty of this country, for all of its warts and problems, is centered in the idea that you can pull papers with the local county clerk, build relationships with your neighbors, form a vision for what you believe should happen in our various layers of government, and then the people cast their votes and decide if they want you to represent them.

As someone whose family is well aware of how fragile this concept of democracy is and what autocratic dictatorships are capable of (my parents fled Iran) I cherish stories of people like Christopher Grove. This is truly a story I didn’t expect to end up telling by the end of election season in 2020, but it is one of the ones I am most humbled to be able to tell.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you that your vote doesn’t matter or that you can’t run for office because it’s not your turn or you don’t have the resources. If you believe you can do some good for your community, if you believe that the current representatives are not up to the task and you can make a case for why you can do better, then run for office, or support someone else that wants to.

I’m proud of you Chris. Get some rest and then get ready, the students, teachers and residents that are all part of AHUSD are all looking to you to do the work now and steward the school district alongside your fellow board mates through some choppy waters ahead.

Your friend and fan,
Bobak Esfandiari

One week from today I will turn 30. I don’t exactly know what to expect, or how to feel. In this moment, it’s hard to find the time to step back and think about where you’ve been, what mistakes you’ve made along the way, and where you’re going next. I tried last night for several hours into the early morning to go back, through my records, my photos, my notes, and take stock of the moments of my life as I passed from year to year over the last decade. While this isn’t comprehensive, it’s a series of small snapshots of where I was as my birthday came and went over the past ten years.

10 years ago as I turned 20 years old, I was wrapping up my second year at Santa Clara University, setting out to travel in Jordan and Turkey with my father, and getting ready to travel to Washington D.C in the fall to conduct an internship researching Iran-US relations. That research would eventually become a chapter in the book The Iran Primer

9 years ago, I finished my third year at Santa Clara University, and was embarking upon a long summer of absolute laziness and relaxation, right before getting evicted from our leased home in the fall due to raising issues with black mold in the bathroom. That experience was challenging and daunting, but my fellow “Shirelings” and I didn’t let it get us down…we had a senior year full of work and experiences ahead of us. So we packed up and found another home and made the next year one of the most memorable.

8 years ago I graduated from Santa Clara University, said goodbye to my fellow “Shirelings” (my housemates), scrambled to find a job in what was still a fairly dismal and difficult job market, and in the process, became a fall fellow at Obama for America 2012. That internship would eventually lead me to David Aldridge and formally working as a staffer to re-elect the President of the United States, Barack Obama.

7 years ago I was celebrating alongside my LGBTQ friends the decisions from the Supreme Court striking down the defense of marriage act and California’s Prop 8. I had also been a contractor at a small startup called Nextdoor for little over 5 months at this point, and in the next two months I would become a full time member of Nextdoor’s Support Operations team, working to handle support tickets and resolve issues that our members write in about.

6 years ago I turned 24 and at this point had lived in San Francisco for 6 months, making new friends, staying in touch with family, friends from high school & college, and always being a complete goof with some of my oldest friends like Anna Cai. Oh, also this was the year when the Mustache became a semi-embraced permanent fixture on the face.

5 years ago I again was in a celebratory mood as my birthday rolled around, again having observed the United States Supreme Court issue a monumental ruling in support of same sex marriage. I had also been lucky enough to celebrate my youngest brother Cyrus’ graduation from high school, and by this point, I had started getting much more active in San Francisco politics and involved in my neighborhood.

4 years ago as I was turning 26 I was volunteering heavily for Marjan Philhour, a woman I believed in and (still) think would make a fantastic city supervisor (she’s running again this year!). I was also making ever more friends at work, and traveling to Coos Bay, OR to help build a solid support team. Little did I know that in a few short months…everything would be turned upside down with the results of the November 2016 election.

3 years ago I was in the midst of organizing my neighbors and friends in our new neighborhood pro-housing YIMBY group, Grow The Richmond. Additionally, I was able to convert my oldest friend Elliott to the way of the stache, and I got to meet and hangout with YIMBY activists from all over the country in the 2nd annual YIMBYtown conference in Oakland.

2 years ago as I turned 28, I was able to see the fruit of a lot of hard work pay off as London Breed (who I volunteered extensively for earlier in the year) was sworn in as the 45th Mayor of the City and County of San Francisco. I also got to celebrate with my many United Democratic Club friends as my old friend (and first boss) David Aldridge held an engagement party with his closest friends in San Francisco.

1 year ago I turned 29. By this time I had joined the board of the United Democratic Club as an appointed member, helping to put on events and turn out volunteers to engage in local, state and national politics. I was joined by my friends from all corners of my life for a smaller family birthday gathering, and this was also the moment when my Nextdoor colleague Victor decided to make his move down to LA to start the next chapter of his life.

And now it’s 2020. In one more week I turn 30.

Now we’re in a pandemic, we’re having a serious and long overdue reckoning on the systemic racism that has been in the bones of this country since far before I was born…and we have a once in a lifetime shot to remove one of the most dangerous men from public office at the ballot box this November.

If you asked me how I’d be celebrating my birthday at the beginning of this year, I probably wouldn’t have told you “quietly sheltering in place in my apartment while sitting out on the balcony”

But that’s where I find myself. This is where the journey has taken me so far. I’m lucky that I’m able to call so many amazing people my friends, colleagues, and cherished companions. My time at Las Lomas High School, Santa Clara University, on the Obama 2012 campaign, at Nextdoor, in the United Democratic Club,YIMBY Action, and on and on…my experiences from these institutions and organizations are part of who I am, but they’re not the entirety of how I came to be who I am.

I truly do believe that I am only as good, or as bad, as the people I surround myself with. Reflecting back on the past ten years, I find myself humbled by the truly phenomenal group of people I have intersected with throughout my 20’s, and I couldn’t be prouder or more appreciative of each and every person I’ve crossed paths with along the way, even when I’ve been less than my best self.

Normally for my birthday I would do some sort of big gathering, pulling together the corners of my life for one big party where people can get to know one another and where I can get drunk in the process and just have a good night to blow off steam and dance the night away.

Well…that’s not happening this year. Or at least, it’s not happening until I personally feel satisfied by the directives coming down from the San Francisco and California Department’s of Public Health. So in lieu of a party, if you’ve made it this far down to this post, I ask that you do the following instead of get me a gift or post to social media to wish me a happy Birthday on July 6th:

1. Send me a physical letter. The US Postal service won’t be saved by a few dozen letters, but our national postal carrier is on the verge of collapse due to some very shortsighted policies enacted by Congress…I figured the least we could do is try to revive the “old way” of sending correspondence, especially in these pandemic times.

The letter can be about anything. What our friendship/relationship means to you. It can be personal advice about something I need to work on as I head into my 30’s, or it can be a memory that we’ve shared together, an invitation to hang out again once we’re able to meet in person again, really whatever you want it to be.

I realize inviting you all to send me snail mail is going to lead to some interesting results. However, I don’t want to get too prescriptive, I just thought this was a novel idea. Just go get some postage, an envelope, and write down what you think feels right to you. My mailing address is 825 La Playa St, #223, San Francisco, CA 94121.

2. As always, instead of a gift to me personally, please consider donating to some of the organizations that I hold near and dear to my heart.

If you feel so moved you can also join these organizations as well or become recurring contributors:

• Richmond Neighborhood Center:
  https://richmondsf.org/get-involved/donate/
• YIMBY Action:
  https://yimbyaction.org/join/
• United Democratic Club:
  https://secure.ngpvan.com/iEdmb5pwQ0KGILMzhagj0g2
• Larkin Street Youth Services:
  https://larkinstreetyouth.org/get-involved/#section-donate
• Imprint City:
  https://www.imprintcity.org/donate

…and finally, yes, please give money to Joe Biden’s campaign. We have one shot at getting rid of the current occupant of the White House, let’s not waste it:

• Biden for America:
  https://secure.actblue.com/donate/joe2020?refcode=frontpage

When all this is over, I will gladly organize a proper birthday celebration, but for now, stay safe, wear a mask, stay home whenever possible, and let’s take care of each other okay?

With love and humility,

Bobak Esfandiari

Low-income affordable housing is very hard to finance and build. Non-profit developers like TNDC, CCDC, MEDA, Mission Housing, BRIDGE Housing, and Mercy Housing all have to cobble together different funding sources, from federal ones, like LIHTC (low-income housing tax credits) and the HOME program, to local and state sources of funds. Almost all of these sources generally have timing considerations. Any delay in approval and construction start dates can put these badly needed projects at risk, or at the very least complicates their financing options.

All that piecemeal funding is dependent on getting your permits. You can raise all the tax money in the world and it won’t make a difference if the process to get this housing built is full of pitfalls, ambiguity, and arbitrary decisions. The current process makes a mockery of the notion that we’re treating the housing crisis like the crisis that it is. As a city, we need to decide if affordable housing is something we want throughout the city, in every neighborhood. Unfortunately, the current process allows far too much abuse by those who want stop or scale back affordable housing that’s already funded.

Look to this article about the proposal to build affordable housing at the shuttered McDonalds in District 5. It might take five years (or more with an environmental lawsuit) to get this badly needed housing built. That is unacceptable.

Some districts are more effective than others at keeping affordable housing out. Here’s a snapshot of my own District, the Richmond, from the pipeline tool provided by the Mayor’s Office of Housing:

My neighborhood is not pulling its fair share of the weight when it comes to building new housing of any kind. That goes double for the subsidized affordable housing that is most badly needed by those residents that earn well below the area median income, which is now almost $83,000 a year for a single person.

Frankly, it’s embarrassing that the pipeline for new affordable housing in our neighborhood is nonexistent. That’s something we cannot accept.

San Francisco needs this ordinance badly. Two other parts of the law are also needed: standardizing of neighborhood notifications to make them more consistent (and apply to tenants and folks who speak languages aside from English) and streamlining small changes to historic buildings.

But, first and foremost, we need to make it easier to build affordable housing. When we put barriers in front of affordable housing, when we make permitting difficult and unpredictable, it takes longer to build this badly needed housing. When permitting is unpredictable, funding pulls back and we lose units. We need to move more quickly on all housing, full stop.

San Francisco cannot wait years for these and other reforms to get more housing built. We need much more legislation just like this to get the housing we need permitted faster and in every neighborhood.

If you want to read even more about this legislation, check out this letter from YIMBY Action. Then, be sure to send a quick email to your San Francisco supervisor urging them to support this ordinance.

And if you want to join fellow residents of the Bay Area in fighting for more housing and more reforms to our bloated processes that get in the way of housing, join YIMBY Action, the fastest growing pro-housing tenant movement in the Bay Area.

Note: My opinions do not reflect those of my employer, my friends, relatives, or anyone else. They are solely my own.

San Francisco, It’s Time to Treat the Housing Shortage Like the Crisis It Is was originally published in YIMBY Dispatches on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Shortly thereafter, I made up my mind about who I would be supporting for San Francisco Mayor in both June 2018 and hopefully November 2019

I then immediately went to the web portal to go volunteer for now Supervisor Breed’s campaign for Mayor. At the bottom, there’s a field that asks this question:

The following text is what I placed in that box in a sort of stream of rage

I’ll share with you what I posted in the YIMBY slack to all my friends as I was watching you getting voted out of being the Mayor in this travesty of a Board of Supervisors hearing:

Joe Fitz Rodriguez on Twitter

@LondonBreed rallies her supporters after vote ousts her as #SF mayor #caretakermayor #SanFrancisco https://t.co/TSRW26pdvm

Bobak: “…seriously, this was the same thing that made me vote for/support Marjan Philhour in 2016. The rhetoric of inclusion, the rhetoric that makes me feel like just because I wasn’t born here doesn’t mean I am any less San Franciscan than the rest of you.

People who TRULY believe in this:

“…what I am trying to do as a leader this city is bring out the best in people…it’s not about progressive or moderate…all of the people who live in this city are San Franciscans and deserve the right to be treated with respect.

They deserve to have a mayor that respects them…they deserve to have a mayor that represents them. As I’ve said before time and time again, if you don’t belong in one of the cliques that they’re talking about, then I’ll be your mayor too.”

- London Breed

…will always have my vote over craven political calculations.

because that statement^^^ is part of what it truly means (at least to me) to be a YIMBY

Additionally I’m also organizing a group of 150+ neighbors in my spare time into a group called Grow The Richmond, where we advocate for building more housing at all income levels to ease our 50+ year housing shortage and reverse decades of entrenched segregation:
https://growtherichmond.com/

I volunteer some of my time with the San Francisco Transit Riders here and there, pushing to make it easier to get around this city without the need for a car:
http://sftransitriders.org/

I spend time in my local community with the Richmond District Neighborhood Center, cleaning our sidewalks, picking up trash, and engaging with my neighbors for cleaner streets:
http://rdnc.org/

I spend time with friends in local democratic clubs to advance progressive policies and elect democrats near and far to roll back the regressive policies of the Trump Administration:
https://www.uniteddems.org/

And yet I am not a San Francisco native.

• I am tired of people in this city writing me and people like me off as “scum” just because we were not born here.
• I am tired of people that disagree with me immediately accusing me of being a “corporate/developer/some other shill” just because we don’t agree about the right solutions for the problems that face this city.
• I am tired of having my identity as the son of immigrants erased constantly because of where I was (or wasn’t) born
• Our ideas for how to make this city better are no less important than everyone elses.
• Our money that patronizes local businesses is no less valuable than the money of people born here.
• Our frustrations at watching people get displaced in this city from the lack of housing is no less painful to us.
• We struggle to make ends meet too, not all of us make six figure salaries.
• We dream of a brighter future for our families, and we want to contribute to the beautiful character and community that makes San Francisco so special to all that inhabit it.

What happened to you tonight was wrong. It was a farce, it was calculated, it was hypocritical, and it was self-serving on the part of those so called “cliques”.

Diego Aguilar-Canabal on Twitter

We can't let white male billionaire VCs like Ron Conway run the city. Let's nominate while male millionaire VC Mark Farrell instead." - @HillaryRonen, basically

London Breed, If you truly believe in what you said tonight in the halls of City Hall, moments after being voted out of the Mayor’s office…

“…all of the people who live in this city are San Franciscans and deserve the right to be treated with respect…”

If you get frustrated the way I do when someone starts their public commentary by highlighting how long they’ve lived in the neighborhood, and then use that fact to denigrate or write off the opinions of people who were not born here or have lived here for generations.

If you are going to be a Mayor that is going to continue to advance a city that is inclusive, tolerant, open, and welcoming to everyone, native and newcomer alike.

You’ll have my vote, you’ll have my volunteer hours, my meager dollars, and my support.

Bobak Esfandiari
Outer Richmond Neighbor
San Francisco Resident

Which is why I was shocked and angered when I received a phone call from SEIU 1021 earlier this week attacking her character and lying about her policies. The caller mispronounced Marjan’s name and I had a hard time hearing her, so I went to the sfethics.org website (as all good folks engaged in SF civics are likely to do) and here’s what I found:

SEIU 1021, the largest statewide public employee union in California, is supporting School Board Member Sandra Lee Fewer in the D1 Supervisor race. They are pouring thousands of dollars into the race to pay out of state phonebankers to call Richmond residents using the script above. As you can see, their attack is outlandish and easily disproven. Let’s start from the beginning:

“She has relied on Pay to Play politics in her career as a paid political consultant”

I’m aware that Marjan has worked on Capitol Hill, in the California Governor’s office, and on a number of Democratic campaigns in California and San Francisco. This comes as no surprise to me. If you’ve ever attended a meet & greet with her or seen her speak about herself, she usually raises this experience as part of her story for how she got involved in public life.

There are two ironies in this character attack that I have to point out. The first is that Marjan worked for the Alliance for a Better California, which beat back Governor Schwarzenegger’s anti-union initiatives that would have severely crippled the rights of unions like SEIU 1021 to organize.

The second is that while Marjan has never been accused of “pay to play politics” in any way, Sandra Lee Fewer has been. In fact, it was recently discovered that she has been soliciting funds from School Board employees whose contracts she votes on and whom she could vote to fire if she chose to. This is the exact type of “pay to play politics” that should concern Richmond voters.

“Marjan has only prioritized luxury housing over affordable housing.”

Marjan has been clear about her support of affordable housing since her campaign began, which you can read for yourself. We are in a housing crisis because we have not created enough new housing to keep pace with job and population growth for the last 50+ years. Marjan wants to work within the zoning laws in the Richmond to produce as many new and affordable units as possible.

“And Marjan’s wealthy backers have created a serious affordability crisis.”

Our affordability crisis has been caused by not creating enough new housing to keep pace with our growing population. Sandra Fewer has been campaigning on the same regressive and broken housing policies that President Obama has agreed are the cause of our housing crisis. It is extremely cynical to at once accuse Marjan of wanting to create new housing while simultaneously blaming her for causing the housing shortage.

In my first job out of college, I worked on the Obama 2012 campaign as a Deputy Regional Field Director. I took that leap and went to work for President Obama’s campaign because I believed in the power of good people in government to make a difference in the lives of ordinary people throughout our communities. After the election, I took that strong belief to the private sector where I now work at Nextdoor, the social network for neighborhoods, working to connect local communities across the country and promote positive dialogue around issues that matter to neighborhoods across the country.

Since I moved into the Richmond District, I’ve been told repeatedly by some of my neighbors and even some candidates running for Supervisor through the way they frame their messaging that because I haven’t lived in the city for 25+ years, my point of view on housing, transportation, and who should lead our neighborhood forward into the future simply doesn’t matter as much as those who came here in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. Marjan doesn’t make me feel like my voice doesn’t matter. She works to include voices from all backgrounds within the district. For that, I am grateful to her and her campaign built on inclusion, tolerance, compassion, and respect.

I urge my fellow Richmond residents to reject the cynical politics of fear and assuming the worst in others being pushed by organizations like SEIU 1021 and to do your own research on the candidates’ positions. And while you’re doing that, take a minute to read up on Marjan’s plans for our future and our neighborhood. I think you’ll like what you find.

Note: My opinions on this election do not reflect those of my employer, nor do they represent the official point of view of the Marjan Philhour for Supervisor campaign.

George Wallace circa 1963 would be proud if he could see what we have wrought in this country.

Over the last week I’ve been thinking for a long while about the state of our country. While our politics have everything to do with why this country is broken in many ways, they are not the subject of this long winded post I sat down to write last night.

No, the reason I’m bringing segregation up today is because I have been shaken to my core about the status quo and how this country has always worked, and for the foreseeable future will continue to work.

What happened to me this last week you might ask? Simply put, I listened to a podcast about how to fix education.

This one to be specific: The Problem We All Live With

This particular story from This American Life tells a story we all know too well. There’s a reason the podcast is titled after the famous Norman Rockwell painting “The Problem We All Live With”.

The story is one we all know, because it’s the story of being educated in the United States of America. I don’t need to tell you that our public schools are in shambles, our education system is the joke of the world, and that we’re effectively neglecting a generation of students who are now ill equipped to carry the banner of progress forward as we march relentlessly through the 21st century.

What I do need to tell you though is that the names of the school districts in this story are completely interchangeable with the ones I grew up knowing as a kid.

As I listened to it the podcast depicts the state of schooling and an unlikely (and accidental) opportunity for some black and brown youth in the school district where Michael Brown attended school to get out of their crummy schools and horrible environment, and get a shot at a real education and a future for themselves.

The funny thing is, we all know about this issue, because we all have the same economic stratified environments no matter where we are. Growing up, the all white schools (meaning the ones with all the money) were more or less the ones where I went to school. I was part of the Acalanes Union High School District (for High School), and the Walnut Creek School District (for elementary and middle school).

As I listened to this story, I stopped, and started to think about how I could swap out “Normandy School District” which is where Michael Brown and other countless black and brown youth go to school, for a similarly under resourced district from my own backyard, “Mount Diablo Unified School District”. At the same time, replace “Francis Howell School District” with “Acalanes Union High School District”.

My heart weeped, and sharpened in anger when I heard a particular part of this story where this replacing act really hit home…at a parent meeting to discuss the future of the Francis Howell district after learning that, in compliance with a little forgotten law, they were about to receive an influx of about 1000 students from the Normandy district.

Why did I weep? Because I could totally and completely imagine parents in my community saying things like the statements below. Things that I absolutely recognize to be racist, utterly shameful, and plainly un-American.

As this public comment period at the Francis Howell district meeting with parents began underway, these were just a few of the things said. You really need to listen to the podcast in full, but I transcribed these comments because I couldn’t turn away as I heard them coming out of my iPhone’s speakers:

“When a child who is coming from an underperforming school with low test scores, comes into a math class at Francis Howell, how will they possibly cope?”

“Once Normandy comes in here, will that lower our accreditation?”

“I’m hoping that their discipline records come with them, like their health records come with them.”

“We don’t want the different areas…coming across on our side of the bridge, bringing with it everything we’re fighting today against.

“This is what I want to know from you. In one month I send my three small children to you, and I want to know, is there any metal detectors?

Because I want to be clear, I’m no expert, I’m not you guys, I don’t have an accreditation, but I’ve read. I’ve read and I’ve read and I’ve read so we’re not talking about the Normandy school district losing their accreditation because of their buildings, or their structures, or their teachers.

We are talking about violent behavior that is coming in with my 1st grader, my 3rd grader, and my middle schooler that I’m very worried about. And I want to know if you have no choice like me, I want to know where your metal detectors are going to be, and I want to know where your drug sniffing dogs are going to be, and I want…this is what I want, I want the same security that Normandy gets when they walk through their school door.

I want it here. I want that security before my children walk into Francis Howell, because I shopped for a school district. I deserve to not have to worry about my children getting stabbed, about taking a drug, or getting robbed.”

“We have to follow the laws. We don’t have to like it, and we don’t have to make it easy. Has anyone considered changing our school’s start times? Making it less appealing?”

“We have both worked and lived in underprivileged areas in our jobs. This is not a race issue. I just want to say to the first woman who came up here and cried this was a race issue, I’m sorry, that’s her prejudice calling me a racist because my skin is white, and I’m concerned about my children’s education and safety. This is not a race issue. This is a commitment to education issue.”

What horrifies me is that these folks are sincere, they are probably kind hearted, and they probably had no clue that one of the prospective transfer students, the subject of the podcast, was actually in the audience and hearing all of the hateful things being said about her as a student from Normandy.

Anyone in my community could have probably uttered some of the same racially tinged things that were uttered in that school district parent meeting in Missouri.

So in a way, we’ve slid backwards over the last 25 years.

Separate and Unequal - FRONTLINE

We’ve slipped into a state of separate facilities for different groups of people. We’ve re-segregated our schooling system and now, what matters most in this country is not how hard you work or your will to succeed.

What matters most in the United States of America, the land of opportunity, is what zip code you were born into.