Rhetoric of Fear The Death of the California Dream Health Care in Perspective The Discipline Leave No Child Behind No Daddy, No! Unconditional Equal Justice under the Law Thank God I Am Not A Woman Infallible "Don't ask, don't tell" Thou Shalt Not Kill Irreconcilable Differences My Will Positive Reinforcement Changing My Name After Sixty Years Copyright © 2000-2009 Thomas E. Rosenberg. All right reserved. Essays may be reproduced with written permission. tomr@inaword.org

The elimination of negative words brings clarity to speech The Reality of the California Dream Many historians and journalists romanticize the post WWII decades as California’s “Golden Years.” More than a thousand people a day were immigrating to California and they brought optimism that spread from San Diego to Eureka. California built freeways and schools to serve its booming population. Jobs were being created. The GI Bill provided opportunities for returning veterans. California public schools ranked second in per capita spending. Community, and State Colleges and the University of California offered a tuition free higher-level education to every California high school graduate. In 1955, San Francisco had a cosmopolitan feel and energy reminiscent of New York City. People spoke foreign languages on the street. Newspapers carried reports about California’s population explosion and a growing economy. San Francisco’s financial district, bustling Market Street, the city’s waterfront, and the factories to the south exuded confidence. In the fifties and sixties, we newcomers were all living The California Dream. But dreams are built on hope and there is a huge gap between a dream and reality. We assumed The California Dream was synonymous with equal opportunity. Little did we know that during WWII, native-born Japanese lost their homes and businesses when they were sent to interment camps; that Chinese children were assigned to a segregated school in Chinatown; that African-Americans who worked in shipyards lived in segregated black public housing on the eastern slope of Potrero Hill; that braceros routinely had their wages and savings stolen by labor contractors; that throughout the Bay Area banks routinely ‘blue lined” communities, with the tacit approval of local officials, to keep out people of color and artificially maintain property values. We newcomers to San Francisco were impressed by the academic achievement of high schools such as Lowell and George Washington in the Sunset District, without giving so much of a glance at schools in Southeastern San Francisco, where gym and substitute teachers were routinely assigned to teach math. Native-born Californians wallowed in complacency, while newcomers saw only golden fields of poppies, purple mountain majesties and white beaches. Most Californians assumed Brown vs the Board of Education, the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled racially separated schools violated the constitution, that the Bay Area neighborhood schools with perhaps a handful of “colored” kids were “integrated” and schools like Woodrow Wilson, with all “colored” students were simply neighborhood schools that provided equal educational opportunities. The Civil Rights Movement brought a touch of reality to The California Dream Protests against segregation in schools, the workplace and housing turned violent. The “draft,” which called all to serve in the armed services during the Vietnam years, promoted anti-war demonstrations in colleges. Court-ordered bussing of school children in California’s cities resulted in a mass defection of middle-class children to private schools and the suburbs. In 1966, Ronald Reagan ran a demagogic campaign for governor. He targeted the University of California - student demonstrators, some of the faculty and administrators -and vowed to “clean up the mess at Berkeley.” His other target was “the welfare queens.” His populist rhetoric, as governor and president for limited government and local control set the tone for conservatives that exists to this day. Facing budget deficits, Reagan closed state hospitals, arguing that the mentally ill would be better treated at the local level. This resulted in mentally ill ending up on the streets – a problem that remains to this day. In 1967, facing a budget deficit. Reagan also enacted the highest tax increases in California history. This ultimately led to the passage in 1978, of Proposition 13, an initiative that strictly limits the property taxes that can be raised on private and commercial property to two percent a year. By shifting the tax burden from local to state government, Proposition 13 has severely handicapped local governments, which conservatives ostensibly supported, from funding necessary local services. In bad times, state government is forced to fund necessary programs by going into debt. When cuts are mandated they are often made on programs and services that assist low-income families and the poor. Proposition 13 has lowered the state’s per capita spending per student from second to 48th in the nation, initiated a fee structure on higher education that takes college out of reach for many students; has resulted in teacher lay-offs, increased public school class size and reduced the number of classes and programs offered. Since the seventies, the Republican mantras of “tax and spend liberals” and “local control” have become staples of conservative rhetoric. Today, California has roads and parks in disrepair, 2.5 million people out of work and 850,000 children living in poverty. This is the reality of the California Dream. January 2009