Something New Every Day

I learned something new the other day at the middle school varsity volleyball game. We usually lose because we don't have a gym or a volleyball court, so practice is harder, but I went anyway to support the girls. More than half of the team is in my advisory (homeroom), and it was an early game; it was supposed to start at 4:00, and since no one is ever able to return the ball after the serve, the games end pretty quickly (they play to 21).

But the team was playing as well as I'd ever seen. Their serves have improved a lot since last year, and there was much less shrinking from the ball. They still need to work on calling it (all my memories of middle school volleyball center around yells of "I got" and, more commonly, "Help!"), but they're making progress. The team also seemed happy: excited, but loose, confident but not about winning, just about playing the game. I remarked to a girl sitting on the sidelines, "You guys are playing well tonight," and she said, "Yeah, you're our good luck charm."

This is the part where I learned something new. I thought that her comment was sweet, if silly, until she added, "Chinese people are good luck." ??? I made a face at her and she said, "You never heard that before?" I told her no, I hadn't, and she sort of repeated the point for emphasis. I said, "So me and my whole family are just good luck all the time?" This seemed to provoke a bit of thought. She modified her position: "Well, not all the time, just some."

Since it can be hard to read tone through the blog medium, I'd like to be clear that I am not offended at all by this exchange. But I am really puzzled. Where do they get these ideas? Who believes this? Is it a weird thing in her family? Is it an African American thing? Since they don't really distinguish between East Asians, do they also believe that Koreans and Japanese people are good luck? What kind of a question is that last one?

Anyway, I have never heard this one before. I'd love to know if you have.

We Were There!

As you have probably heard, we, the people of the United States of America, have just elected our first black President. I think it was Michael Beschloss who remarked that in time, people will probably not think immediately of his race when they think of Barack Obama, just as most people now do not automatically associate JFK with his Catholic background. But it was a 7th grade girl at my school who wrote (I will have to get an exact quote for you) that to see an African American get elected President is inspiring and hopeful and a whole slew of adjectives that I did not expect an 11-year-old to know.

Patrick and I were in Grant Park, here in Chicago, on Election Night. Mayor Daley's projection of one million attendees was a bit high; I think they're reporting 250,000 at the Obama rally. All the same, it was amazing. Unpatriotic coastal elitist that I am, I keep thinking of Claude Monet's painting of Paris (La Rue Montorgueil), decked out for the International Exhibition of 1878. Though there were no French flags at Tuesday's event, the air was palpably festive. It was really something to see the human flood swelling through Michigan Avenue and all its tributary streets, and to be surrounded by people laughing, crying, singing in celebration.

I wish that I could feel an untempered joy and hope in all this. I am happy, and hopeful, and my eyes well up often with the magic of this moment in history. But I'm not the only one who sees more tough times ahead, and the living legacy of all that is behind us. There were shouts of "loser" and worse when McCain's name came up at the Obama rally (my students also noticed how white the crowd at McCain's rally was, and how emphatically they booed Obama, despite McCain's message of support), and while I had hoped that people would be filled with Obama's focus on hope, unity, and change, I suppose our tribal needs and instincts are as strong as ever.

At school, too, this came through. Girls ran through the halls the morning after Election Day, screaming "Obama!!" in jubilation and innocent delight. Yet for many girls, the excitement of the election seemed quickly drowned out by sisters moving away, parents getting divorces, and the rest of everyday life that is so hard for them to grow up with. Worse, I heard about African American students saying to a white girl (who has been picked on for many reasons before this), "We're going to beat you up. You voted for McCain, didn't you?" (Never mind that they are all 13 and can't vote.)

On an intellectual level, I am intrigued by the idea of social change. How does it happen? That from one generation to the next, centuries-old abominations become acceptable? And even harder, that acts, institutions, whole groups of people go from acceptable to normal? What role do individuals play, as outsiders and as insiders? Does anyone have any control over the pace or direction of change?

On an emotional level, I am distraught by all of the problems and inequities that persist in spite of everything we have. Listening to Obama's story about 106-year-old Ann Nixon Cooper, I was inspired by how much has changed in her lifetime. But it seems like we shift more than we change. There is always a winner, always a loser, always a need for power and a concept of The Other.

I hope that over the course of my life, I come to terms with humanity. My greatest hope for the next administration is that it will bring out our best capacities to be thoughtful and rational, to work toward common goals, and to care for one another and our planet.