Behold the innocent school bus, source of contention.

I read an enlightening, if somewhat saddening, piece in the New York Times over the weekend. Times staff reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones pointed out that for all the hubbub about Kamala Harris busting Joe Biden for opposing busing, there has been no discussion about what it really was—or that, it actually worked.

She writes:

That we even use the word “busing” to describe what was in fact court-ordered school desegregation, and that Americans of all stripes believe that the brief period in which we actually tried to desegregate our schools was a failure, speaks to one of the most successful propaganda campaigns of the last half century. Further, it explains how we have come to be largely silent — and accepting — of the fact that 65 years after the Supreme Court struck down school segregation in Brown v. Board of Education, black children are as segregated from white students as they were in the mid-1970s when Mr. Biden was working with Southern white supremacist legislators to curtail court-ordered busing.

I’m one who has tended to think that busing was an ill-advised experiment. But the evidence the writer puts forth says otherwise. And as I read the article, every time I thought I had a, “but you’re not taking this or that into account…” moment, the writer had anticipated it. For example, just when I was thinking that neighborhood schools are the ideal…

Further, while it is true that close-by schools may be convenient, white Americans’ veneration of neighborhood schools has never outweighed their desire to maintain racially homogeneous environments for their children. Few remember that Oliver Brown, a petitioner in Brown v. Board of Education, sued for the right of his daughter, Linda, to attend her neighborhood school. Kansas’ state law allowed school systems to segregate at the behest of white parents, and so the Topeka school board bused Linda and other black children past white schools to preserve segregation. Across the South and in parts of the North, black children were regularly bused long distances across district and county lines, because as late as the 1950s, some local governments valued the education of black children so little and segregation so much that they did not offer a single high school that black students could attend.

And for all us Northerners who presume superiority on this and other racial issues, the article busts some myths. (Cue Randy Newman’s Rednecks here.)

And despite the constant assertion that “busing” failed, busing as a tool of desegregation, and court-ordered desegregation in general, was extraordinarily successful in the South.

In 1964, 10 years after the Brown decision, just 2 percent of black children in the South attended schools with white children. By 1972, nearly half were attending predominantly white schools. After a very short period of serious court intervention and federal enforcement, the South had gone from the most segregated region of the country for black children to the most integrated, which it remains 40-some years later.

The writer goes on to point out that today, New York’s public schools rank as the most segregated. Illinois is a close second. Eight of the top 10 most segregated states are in the North.

Basically, busing was a tool, not and end in itself. Ssegregation was ruled unconstitutional. Because of longstanding segregation in housing (which was no accident), remedying school segregation—and the accompanying gap in the quality of education between white and black schools—busing was essentially the only remedy in many cases.

And it worked not simply to alleviate segregation. From the article:

We now know that school desegregation significantly reduced the test-score gap between black and white children — cutting it in half for some black age groups without harming white children. No other reform has reduced the gap on this scale. Rather, the opposite is true: The test-score gap between black and white students reached its narrowest point ever at the peak of desegregation and has widened as schools have resegregated.

An economist and professor of public policy, Rucker C. Johnson at the University of California, Berkeley, studied the life outcomes of black children who got access to the trifecta of quality Head Start, increased school funding and desegregation. He saw the entire trajectory of their lives change. Compared with kids stuck in segregated schools, even their own siblings, they were more likely to graduate from high school and more likely to get out of poverty. As adults, they earned more, were less likely to go to jail and even lived longer. The earlier and longer these children got access to integrated schools, Dr. Rucker found, the stronger the results.

Anecdotally, an African American friend of ours who grew up in Boston was bused from the city to a suburban school from first grade through high school. She was part of a voluntary program, whereby the suburban district agrees to a certain number of students from the Boston public school attending via busing. (She was not part of the mandatory busing that set off violent reactions.) She would’ve preferred to have a nearby public school that measured up. But she said she got a much better education by attending the predominantly white suburban schools than she would’ve otherwise, and moreover was better prepared for life after school.

At the end of the article, the writer argues that, “Busing did not fail. We did.”

You might not agree, but I hope you’ll read the article—it’s chockfull of history, not all of it good.

Note: In keeping with the mission of the Chicago Cultural Accessibility Consortium, photo captions include detail for visually impaired readers.

Longtime Safe & Sound blog readers might recall a post I wrote in 2011 about seeing the play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? here in Chicago. Better put, when I felt and heard the play: Steppenwolf provided special programming for that play for people who are blind, the first time I ever participated in a special touch tour.

In the rehearsal room, four 8′ plastic folding tables have been arranged to form a large rectangle, around which are seated member of the Artistic and Accessibility teams for introductions, directors notes and a read-through of the play.
Starting in the foreground with their backs to the camera, going clockwise: Whitney (sprawled on floor), Beth, Jack Miggins and Certified Deaf Interpreter Susan Elizabeth Elizabeth Rangel (all with backs to us). On the left side of the table: ASL Interpreter Lizzy Rangel and Stage Manager Casey Peek. On the far side of the table, facing the camera: Laura Alcala Baker (director), Erica Cruz Hernandez (playing Belinda) and Leslie Perez (playing Adeline). On the right side of the table, from closest to farthest away: Hillary Pearson (Producer and Audience Experience Manager), Lindsay Drexler (Caption Designer and Expert User and Consultant) and Matt Bivins (Caption Manager). Seated in the middle of the rectangle, providing ASL Interpretation: Shannoun Moutinho.

Eight years and dozens of theater pre-show experiences later, I was flattered to be asked to help with the “Accessible Services Showcase” put on two weeks ago by the Chicago Cultural Accessibility Consortium (CCAC), a non-profit helping to make Chicago cultural spaces more accessible to visitors with disabilities.

CCAC recruited a large crew that included two actors, a director, a stage manager, a production manager, American Sign Language interpreters, captioners, and an audio describer to present a 15-minute play last month that offered a demonstration project of sorts, a way to show what’s possible — and how to make it real.< em>Project Potential, a short play by local playwright Isaac Gomez and directed by Laura Alcalá Baker, featured these services…all at the same time:

1. Two American Sign Language interpreters standing close enough to the action so that people who communicate via sign language could watch the interpretation and the live action simultaneously
2. Screens for Open Captioning set up in three different locations so no matter where their ticket was, people who couldn’t hear well could see the screens
3. Audio description performed by a professional describer who narrates the action to people who are blind or have a visual impairment via headsets provided by the theater, working to capture each scene without speaking over lines

The Audio Description and Artistic teams in the third rehearsal. In the foreground with backs to camera: Whitney (sprawled on floor), Beth and Jack. Jack’s hand is stretched out in front of him, gesturing towards the director and actors gathered around the prop desk at the far end of the room. In the middle ground, Stage Manager Casey Peek watches the action from the stage manager table.

With some variation, cultural institutions that offer accessible performances usually divvy that all up: one or two performances per run that offer ASL and/or live captioning, another one on a different day with a pre-show for people with visual impairments and so on. And for most live performances, the audio describers, ASL interpreters and live open captioners are not part of the rehearsal or creative process. They prepare by previewing performances and/or working from videos or audio recordings to figure out what to interpret or describe for patrons with disabilities. That means that they’re usually preparing based off an already completed product — which can create challenges, both for the quality of the services and the overall experience of the audiences using them .

But this time was different. They all were invited to attend the rehearsals. And so was I!

Add this to my vita: I am now considered an expert user of audio description of live performances, and along with other user experts who are deaf, use wheelchairs, and identify as having Sensory Processing Disorder, I was invited to attend all four rehearsals for the short play. I learned a ton being at those rehearsals, here are a few nuggets:

• Sign language interpreters have to sort of memorize the action on stage — if they turn around to look, deaf audience members won’t be able to see their hands
• The people creating captions during the show avoid writing THEM IN ALL CAPS because ALL CAPS CAN TAKE LONGER TO READ than words printed in lower case
• Actors are very patient people. During rehearsals the two actors we worked with had to do short scenes over and over again so we could coordinate all the accessibility stuff going on around them
• The audio describer’s job would be a lot easier if they could be at a tech rehearsal alongside someone who uses their services — it can be hard for someone who can see to figure out what a person who is blind can figure out for themselves.

Audio describer Jack Miggins and I sat side-by-side during rehearsals, and he whispered to me what he would say to describe the action on stage. At the same time, I told him what I could figure out on my own.

The Audio Description, Artistic and Production teams at tech rehearsal. On the right side of the frame, Beth and Jack face the action to their left with Whitney sprawled on the ground at Beth’s feet. On the left of the frame, Jason Harrington sits on the floor with his back to the camera, watching the actors work a scene. In the far background facing the camera, Caption Manager Matt Bivins uses his laptop to run the captions, which are visible on a flat-screen tv mounted above the stage.

Perhaps the best example of this was a scene where a high school principal was having a teacher sign a bunch of forms. The principal sat at a table, passed the form over to the teacher, and said out loud, “Sign here.” The teacher signed with such gusto that I could hear the ball-point pen moving across the paper, so after Jack whispered “She signs” I could let him know that (for me, at least) description wasn’t necessary.

But then there’s this: I myself can’t assume everyone in the audience with low-vision would be able to figure that out — it’s also contingent on everyone using the audio description being able to hear something that subtle. Based off their proximity to the stage and their individual hearing ability, some may not. So that’s just one of many, many factors a describer has to weigh.

The presentation was co-sponsored by Theater on the Lake, and free tickets for the June 27 performance were offered to accessibility coordinators, executives, front of house staff, marketing people, and people from the technical and artistic teams at cultural organizations (mostly theaters) from all over Chicago. They all got a first-hand look at how accessibility works, and they stayed afterwards as sign language interpreters, captioners, and Jack Miggins and I gave 15-minute presentations on what went on behind the scenes to make it all happen. “I wish we could be at rehearsals for every play I describe!” Jack told the audience. “It would make my job so much easier.”

A week or so after the event was over, I discovered that was part of the plan: to encourage theaters to someday involve accessibility concerns in play rehearsals ahead of time, and to consider accessibility as a production element as important as sound, lighting, costumes, set design and so on during the creative process. Will that ever happen? Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

I mean, hear.

Here’s the thing about Beth. She has a way of, shall we say, complicating things. Some times, in a delightful way.

Here’s what I mean: It starts with an invitation from her longtime (high school) friends inviting us to meet up in Glen Ellyn Sunday (yesterday) afternoon.

The view from our little patio.

This is where the light bulbs start going off in Beth’s head. Well, we’d have to take the train out to Glen Ellyn. And that train happens to be the same one that goes all the way out to Geneva, Illinois, the quaint little town that Beth and I and Gus lived in for part of the 1990s. There’s a lovely, rustic-but-luxurious place on the Fox River in Geneva called the Herrington Inn. It’s a former creamery that’s been redone.

So, the scheming begins. Beth finds out they have a rare vacancy on Saturday night. Hmm, she thinks. Next thing you know we’re on a Saturday morning train to Geneva and I’m toting my daypack and hiking stuff. Beth’s plan: I take a hike along the Fox River to build endurance for my trip to Alaska while Beth, well, gets into her hotel robe, alternating between working on her computer in the sunshine on the little patio attached to our room, and taking naps while listening to audio books.

Saw a lot of these on my hike.

Twelve miles and three quarts of water later, I showed up with a bottle of chilled white wine and we sat together on the patio. I took a whirlpool bath (did I mention the Herrington is a nice place?) to ward off sore muscles, and we headed out to watch the White Sox and the Cubs play at a local bar/restaurant. Three fish tacos and a White Sox loss later, we were back on the patio.

The next day we had a leisurely European style continental breakfast (you know the kind that includes meats and cheeses—did I mention I really like The Herrington?), I did the crossword, Beth won us a late checkout and we took a walk by the river. Whitney behaved pretty well—she often pulls straight to the water but not this time.

We headed to the train and arrived in Glen Ellyn around 3 p.m., just in time to intercept two friends of the friends who we were meeting, they coming in on the train from the city.

Next thing you know, we’re sitting in splendid weather, eating…meats and cheeses…and sipping wine at a sidewalk table at Marche, a cheese/wine shop owned by one of Beth’s high school pals.

So here’s the deal: Five of the seven us meeting yesterday went to high school together in Elmhurst, Illinois. But two hadn’t seen each other in decades. So that little reunion itself was worth it.

We all reconvened at the home of two of Beth’s pals, who were sweethearts in high school and have made it through all these years. They fed us a perfect summer meal, and we settled into just, well, being us.

Not everything about aging is so great. One of our party was recovering from knee replacement surgery, another is going in for her own shortly. One of our party had been diagnosed with both a brain tumor and lung cancer last year—but after a long slog, is cancer free. We know about Beth’s travails and nearly leaving me behind a few years back with her emergency heart surgery.

But.

I think we could all look around last night grateful to have one another, and taking satisfaction that we’d all, in different ways, changed for the better. Our conversations were honest, agenda-free, and we had a million laughs.

At one point during the evening, one of Beth’s friends looked around the table and said, “This is a miracle.”

I have to agree.

Some Sunday reading brought me back to last week’s topic of immigration.

This Sun-Times piece, about White Sox pitcher Lucas Giolito being outspoken about his opinions, illustrated how his personal experience shaped his views on immigration, legal and illegal.

Smarter, more human immigration policy doesn’t mean open borders.

Giolito grew up in affluence—his mother a successful actress and his father an executive at a big video game company. He grew up under the care of his parents and a nanny named Berta. Berta crossed the border to Texas illegally from Mexico, and found her way to Southern California, where she landed with the Giolito family. From the article:

“There were reasons she basically had to escape El Salvador,” Giolito said. “She basically was on foot all the way up through Central America and across Mexico. Her story is unbelievable. She had to go through hell to get over here and make a better life.

“Sometimes when I see the stuff about ‘illegal immigrants are bad,’ da-da-da — especially with the current [presidential] regime — I just shake my head at it because you don’t know what these people go through. My family was lucky enough to find her. She was lucky enough to find my family. She lived in our home and had a huge part in raising me from when I was a tiny baby until probably 12 or 13.”

Berta eventually became a citizen.

Now, I know that some would say that’s heartwarming and all, but illegal is illegal. And we have to enforce immigration laws and manage illegal immigration.

And I agree.

But what we’re doing is, without question, unnecessarily cruel and not even effective. So, leaving the personal realm, let’s move to the cold hard policy realm, which Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune covered in another Sunday article. Chapman points out that when Democratic Presidential candidate Julian Castro proposed decriminalizing illegal border crossings during Wednesday night’s debate, he was accused of advocating for open borders. Upon closer examination, Castro is doing nothing of the kind. Chapman writes:

When Julián Castro advocated repealing the law making it a crime to cross the border without permission, he confirmed that in today’s political environment, there is no safe harbor for common sense. Republicans gleefully accused him of favoring “open borders,” as though he were going to eliminate all checkpoints and border agents.

Here’s the deal: Making it a criminal offense allows authorities to separate children from their parents.

“If it were a civil offense,” Chapman explains, “migrants would not be jailed, only fined and deported — removing the pretext for tearing kids away.”

So, we’d still have the same system that apprehends illegals, but we wouldn’t have to house them for long periods of time, we wouldn’t cruelly separate children from their parents…hmm, seems like a decent enough idea.

As Chapman points out, in addition to being unnecessarily cruel, the current policy isn’t working.

Castro’s critics believe criminal penalties serve as a vital deterrent to lawbreaking. To which Ur Jaddou, director of DHS Watch at America’s Voice, a pro-immigration group, replies: “Has it been working?” The answer: no. This administration, she told me, “inherited the lowest number of border apprehensions in 46 years, and all we have seen since is a massive increase.”

Toughness is a failure. A 50% rise in prosecutions over the past five years has not dissuaded Central Americans from coming. The number of southwest border apprehensions has tripled since Donald Trump became president.

Central Americans who flee face an arduous journey of 1,500 miles or more. They often pay criminal smugglers thousands of dollars to help. If the expense and the prospect of robbery, rape and murder on the way don’t stop these migrants, the chance of being arrested here certainly won’t.

I hope you’ll read the entire piece. (BTW, Chapman is hardly a bleeding heart.)

Like him, I don’t know how anyone formulates or abides by the current policy. It’s hard to describe how it makes me feel that it’s being done with my tax dollars in my nation’s name.

Actually, come to think of it, it’s easy.

Ashamed is how I feel.

As writers in the memoir classes I lead master the art of writing about their lives, they find themselves with a new challenge: assembling finished stories into book form.

Still time to register at earlybird rates.

Many of my students have met that challenge. Some collected their essays into self-published books for their families, a few worked with an online company called blurb.com to assemble their essays and photos into a hard-cover book, and one couple in class is combining the essays they’ve written for class with scrapbooks they’ve assembled in their 50+ years of marriage.,

And then there’s this: one of my writers, Anna Perlberg, had her memoir, The House in Prague published in 2016 by Golden Alley Press, an independent publisher in Pennsylvania. Now Regan Burke, a writer in another class of mine who many of you know from her guest posts here on our Safe & Sound blog, has arranged her work into book form, too. Her forthcoming memoir, How I Want to Be in That Number, will be published early next year by Tortoise Books, an independent publisher here in Chicago.

I am busy now combining all I’ve learned from the successes of writers in my classes with my own experience in memoir writing to put together a memoir workshop for The Northwestern University Summer Writers’ Conference this year on the university’s Chicago campus.

In its 15th year now, the Summer Writers’ Conference is a three-day extravaganza of workshops, panels, keynote speakers, networking events, and literary readings. One very cool thing about the Northwestern Summer Writers’ Conference is the personal attention writers get there: as long as six people register for a workshop by the time registration closes on August 11, 2019, it’s a go, and each workshop is limited to 18 participants. “Learn how to escalate your plot, write a gut wrenching story, motivate your characters, and turn your nonfiction into narrative,” the web site says. “Hear keynote presentations from award-winning authors, including Rebecca Makkai (The Great Believers) and get advice from publishers, agents, literary editors, critics, and published authors in all genres.”

The conference starts August 15, 2019 and runs until August 17, 2019. My 90-minute workshop, called Getting Your Memoir off the Ground meets from 2:00 p.m. To 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, August 17, 2019, and the web site describes it like this:

Getting Your Memoir Off the Ground
with Beth Finke

Attendees of this 90-minute workshop will take away something useful to help them start, continue, and finish their memoir project. We’ll talk about the benefits of getting personal stories down on paper, do a short in-class assignment, and discuss techniques to get past whatever it is that is stopping us from getting our work done–from finding time to write to facing issues that come with writing about people we love…and those we don’t! The overall emphasis will be on craft and on overcoming the barriers that keep us from writing and assembling our stories. The session will end with a Q&A session focusing on what to do when we feel ready to publish–everything from agents to marketing and the merits of self-publishing vs. finding a traditional publisher.

You can learn more about tuition cost and registration here, and good news: if you register before July 12, 2019 you’ll get the early bird rates!