Racial tensions at a San Ramon high school: do they exist on Walnut Creek campuses?

Maybe we don't live all live in post-racial harmony after all.  

That's becoming evident in our state and national arena.  Just yesterday, State Senator Leland Yee of San Francisco told reporters  he had received racist-tinged death threats since demanding greater transparency over Sarah Palin's June visit to Cal State Stanislaus. One fax he received contained an image of an American-flag-adorned truck dragging a noose.

But what about post-racial harmony in our safe, happy suburbs?

More information emerged this week about racial slurs and a noose-hanging incident at a San Ramon skate park that triggered at least one fight at California High School last week. 

A reporter with the news website, San Ramon Patch, interviewed students at the skate park who said that two white boys and a white girl initiated a dispute with racial slurs aimed a group of black girls. "Witnesses said the boys left the park and returned a short time later hanging a noose from their car window and shouting 'white power,'" the story said.

That incident apparently triggered a fight on the California High campus two days later involving an African American girl who was being attacked by two other girls. When Principal Mark Corti and other adults tried to break up the fight, the girl, a former Cal High student who recently transferred to a continuation high school, struck the principal. School officials describe it as a "glancing blow."

Maybe such racial tensions are not unique to San Ramon--or to its public school campuses. 

Back in October, I reported that police were investigating a number of racist incidents in Walnut Creek and other surrounding cities. These included an employee at a North Main Street Midas auto service who said he endured repeated racial slurs, racist graffiti scrawled in a restroom at Miramonte High School in Orinda,  and a teenager in Martinez harassing an African-American family at a park near the town's marina and shouting "white power!"

I don't remember things like this happening in Walnut Creek when I was growing up, or while attending middle or high school. Either I didn't hear about them or us white kids didn't have many non-white kids to have tensions with. In flipping through the pages of my high school year books from (dating myself!) the early 1980s, I don't see many non-white faces. I remember going to school with a few Hispanic and Asian kids but I don't remember any African-American classmates. I didn't get to know anyone African-American until I went to college outside Chicago. 

While student demographic information for when I was in high school is not easily available, I would venture to say that our Walnut Creek public school campuses are more diverse today than back then. Sure, our campuses and communities are not "diverse" by Oakland, Berkeley, and San Francisco standards, but they are certainly less white than when I was a student here.

Las Lomas High, which my son will attend in a couple years, is 69 percent white, 10 percent Asian, 7 percent Hispanic, and 3 percent African-American 

Northgate High is 68 percent white; 18 percent Asian, 8 percent HIspanic; and  2 percent African-American.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that Walnut Creek's campuses are more diverse than they were 20, 30 years ago. Does it follow that kids today are more tolerant? From what I've observed of my son and his friends, they seem to be more tolerant. Do kids of different races and ethnic backgrounds mix in easy harmony in the cafeteria, off campus? Or do they self-segregate?

Maybe the kids--generally and with a few exceptions--are all right. Maybe it's the adults around these few exceptions who have the problem and who are advocating the idea that it's okay to yell things like "white power" and to hang nooses out of their cars while driving past community parks. 

With the exception of Rossmoor, Walnut Creek is slacking off on the Census

I filled out our family’s U.S. Census form and mailed it back. What a good citizen I am. I guess.

I happen to be a census geek, digging around different data tables, trying different queries. The census is a  goldmine for data about the United States and local communities. It provides a picture of who we are, where we come from, and how we live. 

Cities are particularly keen on making sure the census gets accurate numbers of the people who live within their borders. There are big bucks at stake, which are especially crucial for geographic areas in these tough economic times.

“When you fill out your 2010 census form, you help determine how more than $400 billion a year is distributed to communities," the census website says. On Walnut Creek’s website it reads: “Census participation is important, especially in today's tight economic environment, because per-capita federal funding is tied to census count. Our community stands to lose about $11,450 in federal funding for each person who goes uncounted.” 

So far, on National Census Day, Walnut Creek’s participation stands at only 59 percent. We might have our very civic-minded residents of Rossmoor to thank for scoring just a bit better than the 52-percent national participation rate. According to the Contra Costa Times, more than 75 percent of households in the Walnut Creek retirement community already have mailed back their 2010 census forms, the highest rate of any Bay Area neighborhood.

The city as a whole is doing a bit better than those bigger slackers in San Ramon (52 percent); Danville (57 percent); Pleasant Hill (55 percent); Martinez (57 percent); and Concord (51 percent). But we’re not keeping up with those Lamorinda overachievers: Lafayette, 61 percent; Orinda, 61 percent; and Moraga, 63 percent. You can view this map to see how communities are doing. 

Those Lamorinda numbers are up there with the top five states in census participation rates: the Dakotas, North and South; Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Iowa. (To be snarky, one might say that there’s not a lot else to do in some parts of those states than to fill out a Census form. )You can view maps showing regions and communities and their participation rates at the U.S. Census website.

Starting in May, federal census workers will start walking the streets, visiting the homes of those who have not completed their forms.

If you didn’t receive a Census form in the mail, and want to avoid that visit and participate in this once-in-a-decade count, you can pick up forms in the City Hall lobby, 1666 North Main Street.  

  

Was Walnut Creek's Neiman Marcus gain San Ramon's loss?

Was perusing the Contra Costa Times, and I came across this bit about how the start of construction of San Ramon's "long-awaited" city center project will be put off "a little longer."


"The {San Ramon] City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to extend until 2015 certain portions of its agreement with San Ramon-based Sunset Development for a new civic and retail destination. Construction of the city center was supposed to have already begun, but the slumping economy put a kink in the timeline. Now the first office building may be constructed in 2010, with perhaps an opening in 2012, depending on the economy."


Hmm. Could the loss of Neiman Marcus as a retail anchor have also figured into this new development?


This new city center project, with Sunset Development founder Alex Mehran as a major player, was to be 2 million square feet. And it would feature a new city hall, office space, public plaza, shops, restaurants, hotel, movie theater and housing.


One thing this Times story doesn't mention is that San Ramon really, really wanted a high-en department store, like Neiman Marcus, to come to its new City Center. And Neiman Marcus looked very seriously at the San Ramon proposal--as Neiman Marcus executives disclosed during Walnut Creek city deliberations on the Broadway Plaza project.


But San Ramon's Neiman Marcus hopes stalled when Broadway Plaza expressed interest, and the rest is--we hope--Measure I/mega-millionaire-developer-battle history. And, if you're Neiman Marcus, who are you going to choose? A city with a historically and geographically established downtown and retail center, or a city with no downtown--as of yet.

I don't mean to knock San Ramon. It has a lot of other things going for it, just not a downtown. Also, the construction of a new department store in Broadway Plaza--and it's never been guaranteed to be Neiman Marcus--may be a mixed blessing for Walnut Creek.