Racial tensions

Today I was in Edison High in Stockton, California. When I drove to the campus I was wary about what I was getting into. The neighborhood was really run down and the buildings seemed old and no kept up to standards. The campus had a high metal fence around it with the top dangerously looking like spikes. There is only one gate that is open, which I always wonder if it is safe in case there is a fire or something, and There were guards all over the campus. I even asked the counselor if it was a normal high school or a continuation high school. It was in sharp contrast to the school I was in yesterday that was 5 years old and everything was new. I didn't know what to expect from the students. I looked at the grades the students got on the test they took for me and they were good, not great but solid. When I met the students they were great. They were very nice and polite! They were a real pleasure to work with and I was happy to be there. Talking to the counselor I found out there were 2200 students in the school and less than 20 whites. I was surprised, most surprised that he mentioned it. I guess it was mostly Hispanic and then Asian. It made me realize that I don't really notice things like that. I don't know where the big emphasis on race came from, but when I was young I didn't really notice it. Maybe because I was in schools that had mostly military kids and in that society parent's rank is more important that the student's race. I didn't grow up knowing my ancestry, and I didn't think about race when I found friends. I found friends that liked doing the same things I did, were in my church, or in my Boy Scout troop, or lived near me. I lived in civilian communities twice as I was growing up, when I was in first grade I got beat up by and older kid because my friend was black, the weird thing was I didn't even know he was black. When I talked to an old high school friend last week he and I talked about the same thing. I was happy to work in Edison High in Stockton and I look forward to working there again. Oh, the last time I was in a school in Stockton they had Martin Sheen's picture on the wall, I noticed this school had his picture on the wall also. I asked the counselor why his picture was there and he said he had no idea!