Personal thoughts on London
Jul. 8th, 2005 01:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
naomikritzerIn the interests of full disclosure, I went over to Instapundit just now, read that I'd been complimented and linked to, picked myself up off the floor, and thought, "he linked to my blog! Eeek! Now I need to quick say something witty and interesting to make it worthwhile for all the people who click over!"
I'm not sure I've got "witty and interesting" in me today, though, as I'm in the process of getting ready for a trip with two small children to visit the in-laws (via plane in an Orange Alert, no less -- the main thing we've noticed about orange alerts it that they confiscate your rented luggage trolley at security for no readily apparent reason during orange alerts, making it 10 times harder to get the carseat to the gate).
I did, however, want to talk some more about my own personal experiences of London.
The Mayor of London made a statement yesterday or today that included the following words:
I said yesterday to the International Olympic Committee, that the city of London is the greatest in the world, because everybody lives side by side in harmony. Londoners will not be divided by this cowardly attack. They will stand together in solidarity alongside those who have been injured and those who have been bereaved and that is why I'm proud to be the mayor of that city.
I spent a year living in London when I was thirteen: 1986-87. My father is a professor (of Political Science) and was on sabbatical leave; my mother was doing her dissertation research (in Theater). My brother, sister and I went to British schools for the year.
My school, Highgate Wood, was a somewhat down-at-the-heels Comprehensive in a part of London called Crouch End. The woman I mentioned yesterday, Melanie, was my best friend that year. Madison, Wisconsin, where I came from, funds schools extremely well, so Highgate Wood was a cultural shock in all sorts of ways, but the thing I told people when I got home when I wanted to shock them was that we had no math homework for most of the year because there weren't enough textbooks to allow everyone to take one home.
I was thirteen that year, so obviously, "harmony" was not a word you'd be likely to choose to describe the interactions. The school was much physically rougher than what I'd been used to in the U.S. But the thing that struck me the most was that in Madison, people paid a great deal of lip service to the beauty of diversity without (in many cases) having a diverse group of friends. At Highgate Wood, people mocked lip service to diversity, but it was an intensely diverse, genuinely integrated environment.
Melanie's mother was white; her father was Jamaican. She described herself as "half-caste," which I think is considered a derogatory term in the U.S. but was the accepted British term at least at the time. Of my other close friends that year -- Christine was Chinese (her parents had moved to London from Hong Kong); Nadine was from somewhere in the Carribean, if I recall correctly; Sufia, Sabiha, and Afraza were all from Bangladesh; Sopna was Indian; Suzy and Caroline were white; Faluso was black. I remember kids from Pakistan, Cyprus, Greece, and South Africa as well. Friendships formed mostly without regard to race or ethnicity.
I don't want to overstate and make it sound utopic. I encountered anti-semitism for the first time in my life at the school. There were some genuinely dangerous kids who were known to carry switchblades; nothing was ever done about this, nor about the many other acts of open bullying that took place even in the presence of teachers. Academically, this school -- at least in the mid-80s -- left a lot to be desired, and not just because of the shortage of math textbooks.
But I learned a lot that year. And one of the things I learned is that racial lines I saw at my American high school (West High, in Madison, Wisconsin) were not inevitable.
I'm not sure I've got "witty and interesting" in me today, though, as I'm in the process of getting ready for a trip with two small children to visit the in-laws (via plane in an Orange Alert, no less -- the main thing we've noticed about orange alerts it that they confiscate your rented luggage trolley at security for no readily apparent reason during orange alerts, making it 10 times harder to get the carseat to the gate).
I did, however, want to talk some more about my own personal experiences of London.
The Mayor of London made a statement yesterday or today that included the following words:
I said yesterday to the International Olympic Committee, that the city of London is the greatest in the world, because everybody lives side by side in harmony. Londoners will not be divided by this cowardly attack. They will stand together in solidarity alongside those who have been injured and those who have been bereaved and that is why I'm proud to be the mayor of that city.
I spent a year living in London when I was thirteen: 1986-87. My father is a professor (of Political Science) and was on sabbatical leave; my mother was doing her dissertation research (in Theater). My brother, sister and I went to British schools for the year.
My school, Highgate Wood, was a somewhat down-at-the-heels Comprehensive in a part of London called Crouch End. The woman I mentioned yesterday, Melanie, was my best friend that year. Madison, Wisconsin, where I came from, funds schools extremely well, so Highgate Wood was a cultural shock in all sorts of ways, but the thing I told people when I got home when I wanted to shock them was that we had no math homework for most of the year because there weren't enough textbooks to allow everyone to take one home.
I was thirteen that year, so obviously, "harmony" was not a word you'd be likely to choose to describe the interactions. The school was much physically rougher than what I'd been used to in the U.S. But the thing that struck me the most was that in Madison, people paid a great deal of lip service to the beauty of diversity without (in many cases) having a diverse group of friends. At Highgate Wood, people mocked lip service to diversity, but it was an intensely diverse, genuinely integrated environment.
Melanie's mother was white; her father was Jamaican. She described herself as "half-caste," which I think is considered a derogatory term in the U.S. but was the accepted British term at least at the time. Of my other close friends that year -- Christine was Chinese (her parents had moved to London from Hong Kong); Nadine was from somewhere in the Carribean, if I recall correctly; Sufia, Sabiha, and Afraza were all from Bangladesh; Sopna was Indian; Suzy and Caroline were white; Faluso was black. I remember kids from Pakistan, Cyprus, Greece, and South Africa as well. Friendships formed mostly without regard to race or ethnicity.
I don't want to overstate and make it sound utopic. I encountered anti-semitism for the first time in my life at the school. There were some genuinely dangerous kids who were known to carry switchblades; nothing was ever done about this, nor about the many other acts of open bullying that took place even in the presence of teachers. Academically, this school -- at least in the mid-80s -- left a lot to be desired, and not just because of the shortage of math textbooks.
But I learned a lot that year. And one of the things I learned is that racial lines I saw at my American high school (West High, in Madison, Wisconsin) were not inevitable.
Just ordered your book from Amazon
Date: 2005-07-08 08:21 pm (UTC)Did you know Crouch End was (I think) the basis for a great little Stephen King short story?
Anyway, just wanted to say hi to a fellow cheesehead.
P.S. Don't feel like you have to write something witty and interesting. I've been Instalanched a few times and have yet to reach that bar.