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Students took the helm at dozens of classes at Berkeley High School Monday in a blitz of consciousness-raising seminars on tolerance, scapegoating, and the meaning of terrorism.  

“It’s an incredible direction for them to be taking at the beginning of a school year,” said Susan Werd, a ninth-grade counselor. 

Amid nationwide harassment of people of Middle East origins, Muslims and even Sikhs, in the wake of the East Coast terrorist attacks, two campus groups teamed up to educate the school community and the public that Berkeley has not been immune to racist intimidation and scapegoating. 

Some 20 members of Culture and Unity, a campus group founded by students of mostly South Asian descent, and Youth Together, which acts on issues important to students of color, spent their lunch periods Monday comparing notes on the morning’s classes and finalizing teaching schedules. 

“I had such a great morning!” said junior Maliyah Coye, capturing the electric energy in the room. “We reached them, but we entertained them at the same time.” 

Sarena Chandler, a senior and the school’s representative on the school board, and junior Deborah Ortiz took over David Bye’s 12th grade advanced placement English class shortly before lunchtime. They hung posters on the chalkboard with various definitions of terrorism and scapegoating written in magic marker. 

“After Sept. 11 a large community of people including Afghans, Pakistanis and Indians have been tremendously harassed,” Chandler told the class. School girls had been followed home, she added; people had gone through the Yellow Pages to call up and “cuss out” proprietors with Arabic-sounding names. 

“Students and even teachers are being incredibly unjust,” she said. 

In an exercise, Chandler asked a student a question and then cut her off in mid-sentence to illustrate how commonly people indulge “this whole little twist about putting their own side into it.” 

“When is the last time anyone actually listened to you?” she said. 

Students were then paired off with one required strictly to listen while the other talked for two full minutes about the forms discrimination took, in their own lives or in others’. Afterwards, Emil Reyes volunteered to leave the classroom and come back in with a sign on his back that said something unknown to him. Chandler told the rest of the class to start calling Reyes names based on their associations with the word on the sign: terrorist. 

“Watch his psyche and how he physically turns around,” she said. 

Reyes entered the room and the calls began with “Arab!” This was followed by “Guy with a beard,” “7-11 owner,” “Murderer,” “Camel jockey” and others. A female student said “male!” and David Bye, the class’s usual teacher, said “CIA trainee.” 

“This is really degrading,” Reyes said. 

“He’s not a terrorist,” Chandler said, “but because we’ve put this label on him, it’s easy to dehumanize him.” 

Students then shared their stories from the discussion time. Adam Akullian said he flew on Saturday and when four Middle Eastern-appearing passengers boarded, some passengers could be heard hoping aloud that they weren’t Arabs. Immanuel Foster blamed the media for dwelling on the race of the hijackers, and said, “They should just be talking about ‘those people who went over the edge.’” 

“We all have to appeal to the better side of our natures, otherwise it’s just going to lead to hate crimes that are unfounded,” said Sarah Goodin. 

In a wide-ranging discussion of the varying sects of Islam, the origins of the term “jihad,” and the State Department definition of terrorism posted on the chalk board, Bye encouraged the class to ask if the acts of Sept. 11 might be rooted in economics. To the terrorists, he said, “Those World Trade Centers could represent American greed and how America has taken so much of the world’s wealth for itself.” 

Chandler ended the class by urging the students to “analyze” the media’s representations. “And when you see other people who you don’t think have as conscious a view as you do, educate them,” she said. 

About 45 such teach-ins, four or five per class period all day, were scheduled for Monday and Tuesday. Chandler said she had thought up the teaching devices with help from family members over the weekend. 

Some classes went more smoothly than others, Bye said.  

“They’re quiet at first,” he said. “I think people are really hesitant to talk about it.” 

Later, Madeleine Tajima’s tenth grade world literature class was much less talkative. Yasmeen Drummond, one of the teach-in leaders, tried to spark a class-wide discussion about the current wave of discrimination. 

“Did anybody see it on the news?” she asked. 

“Yeah,” said two or three students. 

“Did anybody know it was taking place?” 

“Yeah.” 

Gradually, when the class leaders turned the discussion from discrimination to the bombings and the U.S. response, some students spoke up. 

“A lot of the times we go and bomb other countries and they don’t tell us about it,” said Brandis Monroe. “That’s the reason why so many people are like, you know, finally America got what it deserved.” 

Others voiced the opinion that anyone who would bomb America was “really, really stupid” and should expect retaliation. 

Students in both classes attended by the Daily Planet said they felt that fear, stereotyping, and discrimination were simply a part of human nature that had to be struggled against but also accepted. 

“Don’t listen to those people who put you down,” LaToya Dowell told the student teachers in the tenth grade class – Drummond, Amelia Maffin, Manjinder Kaur, and Umair Khan. “They don’t know what they’re saying.” 

Watching coverage of the two recent family massacres in Sacramento, Dowell admitted, “I thought white people were crazy.” 

“I don’t hate you guys,” she added.