The Lincoln Log

Fists of two colors

Almost palpable apprehension and anticipation rolls among the students. A mob gathers in the middle of the hall and you hear shouts, grunts, and a dull thud when chaotic blows hit their target. Quick, heavy footsteps run up and everyone scatters instantly, leaving only evidence that the authority figure was too late and the air is thick with tension, excitement, disgust, the fight is over. We all know this experience.

Thankfully, something many Lincoln students have commented on is that Lincoln does not have many fights. At least that used to be the case. We always speculated as to why. Perhaps it was the fact that a police station was a block down, perhaps it was that Lincoln was a good school, or perhaps it was just that Mr. Balzer and security seemed to be everywhere at once.

Whatever it was, it seemed to be working; that is, until about a month ago when a small misunderstanding bloomed into a school wide racial conflict that Mr. Pang has addressed in many homeroom meetings.

That is not how the story usually goes. Disputes between students here at school have usually been within a race rather than between two races, and are usually simple misunderstandings. Past examples usually go like this: a person is walking down the hall; someone else bumps into them. The first person either does not get or is not satisfied with an apology, gets upset, and starts cussing at or messing with the offending person and maybe their friends as well.

“The first person, usually a lower classman, feels threatened or unsure of him/herself in this environment, and they get hostile. The second person may not want a confrontation, but doesn’t know how to back down without looking like a loser,” Lincoln High School Dean Mr. Balzer said.

What starts as a communication gap or feelings of wounded pride ends up a full-scale altercation that maybe neither wanted.

“It gets scary, Balzer reported, when the incident is between upper classmen, because these altercations are thought out and deliberate, not hasty and rash.”

This was not, however, the case in what recent rumors have labeled the racial war. What happened? Several teachers were hesitant to try to put a name on it, but Mr. Daniel Kim, English teacher, said, “I can only say that in my ten years here, I have seen a significant increase in incidents; in the halls as well as around campus. But I haven’t been able to tease out whether it is race related or not.”

Recently, a small incident touched off into a huge racial issue.

“A couple of Asian students got into a verbal altercation with an African American kid who was not even a Lincoln student. They felt very offended and angry. They were waiting down by KFC because they wanted to ‘talk’ to this person. Well, this guy comes down the hill, who actually isn’t the person they got into it with; he’s a Lincoln student and there’s a group waiting. They walked up to him and didn’t say ‘hey, you were kinda rude to us earlier, is there something we need to know about’ instead, they said ‘Hey why the blank blank blank?!’ and give him a hard time. Well, a Latino friend of the African American kid who knows the Asians steps in and resolves the whole thing without anyone having to fight. However, some kid who didn’t see the whole thing jumps in and starts swearing at the Asians. This was on a Friday, so on the Monday, Asians go up to black kids and start harassing them, and the same thing with some black kids,” Balzer said. Before we know it, the African American community at Lincoln are harassing and attacking the Asian community randomly because they were misinformed, and ditto for the Asian community. The conflict climaxed so quickly that many did not understand it or even know it was happening.

One thing is for certain, though; everyone was affected. Even those not up to date on the latest and those who do not care are feeling the consequences that this has on the school community.

“When there are fights or someone gets arrested, on or off campus, it raises the tension in the school and affects the school community as a whole,” social studies head Valerie Ziegler said. We have all felt it—the growing sense of unease and apprehension. It effectively ruins the learning environment and our trust in the safety of the school.

“[It] is just sad. [We] hoped that Lincoln could be a small pocket in San Francisco where people leave the stuff from their neighborhoods at the door, but people are bringing it in, and that makes kids wonder if they should come to school, because they don’t feel safe,” Mrs. Dana Martinez-Molez said.

So how do we, the average student, get involved to try to change the situation for the better? How does a person who is uninvolved in, maybe even unaware of, the problematic incidents causing this tension respond? Like some of the seniors I asked, you could be feeling a sense of apathy or disconnection to the school. Nevertheless, since we are always told the individual makes a difference, how can we? People who are uninvolved may be able to tell teachers about an incident ready to happen if they hear about it, or they may be able to form committees in order to talk about the problem constructively with people who are involved and similarly uninvolved in an effort to come up with a solution.