How LBUSD, the Fire Department and the Parks Marine and Recreation Department unwittingly partner to make some students feel inferior.
EDITORIAL If I told you that our Fire Department, LBUSD and Parks Department are acting in concert to exclude black and brown children on elementary school campuses in Long Beach you’d think I was exaggerating at best.
Like it or not, that's exactly whats happening with the City's Jr. Lifeguard Program. But like most things in life, little about Jr. Guards is black and white.
Gonzalo Medina does his best to change the caste system that has since 1969 helped to defined Long Beach Jr. Lifeguards. Medina is the Chief of Marine Safety for the Fire Department.
In the summer of 2017, 650 kids were enrolled in Junior Guards. They ranged from ages 9 to 17 years old. The same year, Medina was praised for his effort to reach out to LBUSD middle schools in North and West Long Beach.
This is an area of town where most kids are black and brown and can't swim. Medina's act was groundbreaking. The sort of unselfish thing you'd expect from a firefighter. His goal was to recruit kids to the program that had fallen through the cracks.
After what the Grunion described as an "aggressive outreach campaign across the city," where more than 70% of residents identify as people of color, this 2017 picture of Long Beach Jr. Lifeguards speaks a thousand words on equity.
But this outcome doesn't diminish Medina's effort. He is one man in a fight against a long established caste system in Long Beach.
What few residents know is that years before middle school, the Jr. Lifeguard Program has already left its impression on elementary school students at school's like Minnie Gant.
Most stories you'll hear about the Junior Guard are heartwarming.
Last summer, the Grunion reported two separate incidents where Long Beach Jr. Lifeguards saved the life of a drowning victim. One of the little girls who saved a life was, two-years ago, in my daughter's 3rd grade class.
At the time, and still today, I was proud to read that a child at my daughter’s school was learning a skill that empowered her to save another’s life.
In the same breath, however, the very program that empowered her classmate teaches my little girl - and children that look like her - to feel inferior.
Whether it's being done with malice or purposeful intent, I don’t know. But as a parent, all I could feel was helpless as my daughter described what has for years now been happening at her elementary school, Minnie Gant.
A doting father, until COVID-19 hit, everyday after school I picked her up. Since kindergarten I’ve always asked her the same question on our walk home, “tell me what happened today at school?” She never mentioned this, until now.
Little did I know, all of her school age life, the Jr. Lifeguards Program in Long Beach have undermined her sense of dignity, self-worth and positive image.
How LBUSD Administrators and Parents Respond
My daughters principal explained to me that Shemaiah's entire account was false. The principal went as far as to even deny that children wear Jr. Lifeguard shirts on campus. This is in fact a common sight on campus that I've routinely witnessed myself.
After insisting on how basic a fact it is that the shirts are worn and how ridiculous it was to deny it, she recanted. Yet, still she protested that everything else my daughter described never happened.
But if the principal would hide the truth about kid t-shirts, what else was she not being transparent about?
A facebook group called "Parents for LBUSD Schools" removed my post and kicked me out of the group after posting this video. With over 3,000 members, the group admin wrote immediately after silencing my daughter that "negative" posts that "attack others" are prohibited.
After seeing the video, several parents attacked me for "defaming" the school and the Jr. Guards program without having enough facts supported by "sources". One PTA member went so far as to dismiss my little girls account as "fallacy" and reported the video to other facebook group admins as "inappropriate".
Others accused me of being politically motivated. Shemaiah is "very confused" or "coached" they'd write.
I didn't know that one needed to cite a child's personal account to substantiate her feelings. I also wondered why it was okay to so readily dismiss my daughters experience as a black girl, when we are so often encouraged not to dismiss women who allege sexual assault.
Fortunately there were other women who welcomed her story and several who offered thoughtful solutions.
The dominant response, however, is predictable. Historically, when blacks have recalled events that reflected poorly on a City's image those in power have taken every measure to discredit and hide the truth. It wasn't until 2012 that Oklahoma high schools were required to teach the truth about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.
At the same time, I get being reluctant to look in the mirror. It's something we all face.
I didn't want to believe it either but was overcome by the extent of her recall and vivid detail as she described event after event.
Why I shared the video
So for days I pondered whether I should share this with you.
After sharing the video, one mother chastised that posting it was somehow a form of irresponsible parenting and likely to result in Shemaiah being the object of bullying at school.
Little did the she know, as a kindergartner Shemaiah had twice been called "Nigger" on the playground. In one instance it had been made into a song.
Still the spirit of the concern is fair.
It's a decision Black parents during the Civil Rights movement often faced when electing whether or not their children would march while Dr. King was writing a letter in a Birmingham jail. Or when courageous parents sent their black children into harms way to desegregated a Little Rock school.
After reading Dr. Alex Norman's "African American Leadership at the Crossroads" I find it morally impossible for me and my daughter not to speak out.
"The reluctance to protest or organize against unwarranted behavior on the part of elected or appointed officials for fear of retaliation is a reality in this city," Dr. Norman writes of Long Beach. There are few more politically relevant institutions than the school district, the fire department and public parks.
In the book, Dr. Norman explains that the "go along to get along " mentality of Black leaders in Long Beach is so pervasive that he coined it the "Long Beach way".
Not anymore.
I can hardly help my daughter overcome her fears if I am afraid to stand up and be a man in the City where I live.
What psychologists say
After talking with a psychologist, I gained a broader perspective. Like all children, my daughter wants to be included in school activities. She also wants to be praised and part of celebrations taking place.
Because of her race and lack of access, her exclusion is causing her to develop anxiety at school.
Her twin experiences are worry and fear. Afraid she won't be included. Worried she won't be praised or celebrated.
The problem is that anxiety can worsen and interfere with her school performance, relationships with other children and particularly with the children being favored. What’s worse is that feelings of inferiority develop imbalanced power dynamics between her and other children.
All of this likely to bleed over into adulthood.
One result is to develop irrational fears or thoughts around swimming, swimming pools or any sort of organized activity or team sport related to water. This outcome is rather concerning since black children are already 3 times more likely to drown than white children in America.
Unfortunately, anxiety over not belonging doesn't expire once childhood is over. It carries over into professional or social settings when she grows up.
As you can imagine, this is hardly what I wanted to hear.
Olympic Dreams
What Shemaiah experienced at her elementary school relates to a larger and city-wide effort around water sports. The 2028 Olympic Games are coming to Long Beach. As one of the Mayor’s 8 capital improvement goals, local officials are hopeful that an $85 Million Belmont Pool makeover will draw in the Games and tourism dollars.
The only thing standing between the City building the new Belmont Beach Aquatic Center is a list of special conditions required by the California Coastal Commission. These special conditions were created because our city presented a plan to the Commission that was not racially equitable.
Until recently, I assumed that the only issue was how to make the new pool equitable. I had no idea that the existing pool's inequities were so baked-in to our City that they had corrupted bedrock institutions such as the Fire Department, LBUSD or even Parks and Recreation.
On condition of anonymity I have spoken with both state and local elected officials who, while they support the pool, acknowledge that Jr. Guards and other aquatic programs are not equitable reflections of our City.
The Players
Acting as a center of gravity, the inequities of the Belmont pool are so baked-in to our municipal framework that they have corroded several of the most beloved and celebrated institutions of any City.
Here's how the Fire Department, the Parks, Marine and Recreation Department and LBUSD play a role in creating a majority of children who live in a waterfront city but cannot swim.
Fire Department
The Jr. Lifeguard program is run by the Fire Department. Through its Marine Safety Division, they have a six week summer program where students ages nine to seventeen learn lifeguard rescue techniques, first aid, ocean sports, physical conditioning, and marine ecology.
To be clear, Jr. Guards it not the brand of extra-curricular activity one can merely sign-up to participate. Aside from the fee, all children are required to pass a rather rigorous swim exam. To help, Jr. Guard has a program to build young swimmers' skills to qualify.
More than just a summer program, Jr. Lifeguards offers professional and career development. Their website reads, “[Jr. Lifeguards] gives students the experience they need for future careers as lifeguards or in various public service professions.”
It’s these sort of programs that if Jr. Guards were equitable and inclusive could go a long way to lift more underserved kids from poverty and into successful careers. Not to mention saving lives of kids most at risk of drowning.
Parks and Marine Recreation Department
For Decades Jr. Lifeguard tryouts were held at the Belmont pool. In fact, scores of Jr. Lifeguard children left public comment at City Council in support of building the new Belmont Beach Aquatic Center. The City’s Parks Department operates the Belmont pool as well as sponsors the Jr. Lifeguards.
But it’s not as if the City are amateurs at park programming. The Department is a four-time recipient of the National Parks and Recreation Society's "Gold Medal" award for outstanding management practices and programs.
For some reason that City's expertise in "outstanding management practices" seems yet to have applied its equity lens to the Junior Lifeguards.
Long Beach Unified School District
Last reported as having 70,000 students, LBUSD is often noted as the third largest school district in California. With greater than 12,000 employees, the school district is the largest employer in Long Beach.
In stark contrast with the Jr. Lifeguards Program, LBUSD serves one of the most diverse student populations among large cities in the United States.
Why this matters
Do you recall the 1950’s landmark Supreme court case Brown v. Board of education? Well, it’s responsible for ending legal segregation in America and desegregating schools. The testimony that most moved Supreme Court justices was an experiment that used dolls to show that black school aged children in segregated schools believed they were inferior to white children.
The husband and wife psychologist team had devised a simple test. Give school-aged black children a black doll and a white doll then ask them which doll they favored. The vast majority favored the white doll.
The final question was which doll the black child believed they most resembled. That question caused many children to storm out the room in tears.
“These children saw themselves as inferior and they accepted the inferiority as part of reality,” testified the psychologist in the landmark decision.
Black and brown children in Long Beach are being made to feel inferior to white children by the very school district trusted to educate them, the fire department sworn to rescue them and the parks responsible for their recreation.
No, the school district is not segregated. But rather, the programming and for that matter the school have the chilling effect of segregation.
Our City’s Fire Department, Parks Department and school district shouldn’t be playing active roles in making black children feel unworthy or ashamed. Just as black children in the 1950’s doll experiment thought black dolls were inferior to white dolls, how do you think a black and brown child in Long Beach feels about their self worth and image when viewed through the lens of the Jr. Lifeguards and the Belmont pool?
To make matters worse the school site’s top leader, the school principal, reinforces their inferiority by being - at best - too insensitive to realize that her pool party works to exclude students already reeling from exclusion at the hand of the Jr. Lifeguards.
How do we teach children to value public safety officers when they can so readily attach the racially divisive Jr. Lifeguards Program to firefighters? Lastly, what does it say for the future of our democracy or class warfare when children, made to feel unworthy, result to a vote against a Jr. Lifeguard bungalow, not based on principle, but out of retaliation and envy?
Thus, it appears that our schools have become life sized petri dishes that lead to the type of mob like descent we saw fall upon our nation’s Capitol during a nail biting transfer of presidential power.
Chief Justice Earl Warren understood the corrosive and life-long consequences of such institutional racism when he wrote in the Brown v. Board of Education decision:
“To separate [black children] from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone,”
Thus, we can hardly crush the foundations of inequity in this City without taking a profound look at the moral ramifications the Belmont pool and the Jr. Lifeguard program perpetuates.
Solutions
This is not a one-off issue or isolated incident. From a major port, to wetlands and a coastline the City of Long Beach is synonymous with water. Regardless of race, class or income our City has a moral imperative to train its children how to swim as a matter of public safety.
For more than 50 years, the largest and most elite city-run pool in Long Beach has not served its least water safe population of color.
Recently created income based scholarships are insufficient to remedy decades of exclusion at Belmont Pool and the Jr. Lifeguards Program. First, income is only one barrier to Jr. Lifeguards. Another high hurdle to Jr. Guards is the ability to swim. Thus, the first remedy to exclusion is to get black and brown kids water safe.
During a recent Coastal Commission hearing, City Councilman and Coastal Commissioner Roberto Uranga commented that his wive felt barriers of entry at Belmont Pool nearly 5 decades ago when she visited as a child for the first and last time. The resolution from that same hearing resulted in the Commission finding that the city had failed to reach out to underserved communities in planning pool programs.
It’s apparent from Shemaiah’s account that a winning model is to develop a positive swim culture beginning in kindergarten with lessons that graduates into the City's Jr. Guards program and other water sports.
This way in third or fourth grade those kids who are interested are prepared to tryout for Jr. Guards have the skills to make the cut. Any outreach to underserved kids as late as middle school is a positive gesture but is hardly transformative in the face of a decades neglected public safety matter.
All that glitters isn't gold. So while our parks win gold medals for programming and our City competes for a contract for the Olympic Games, black and brown kids are locked out.
A guiding principle of the Olympic Games is “blending sport with culture and education”. For a City that can’t blend its own elementary school students into a public pool, being “Olympic ready” is the least of our problems.
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