Public Comment

What's Wrong with Hacking the BHS Yearbook

Cyndi Spindell Berck
Friday June 05, 2015 - 11:34:00 AM

There are so many things that are infuriating about the hacking of the Berkeley High yearbook, in which one of the small schools was mocked for training future trash collectors (misspelled by the hacker). One of the most infuriating things was the mockery of people who do difficult and essential work. However, I guess I do hold some stereotypes about trash collectors. They are strong men, often African-American men, who get up before dawn and work long hours at a hard job. They safely and responsibly manage dangerous machinery, narrow streets, and bad weather; they are courteous to impatient drivers, inattentive pedestrians, and rushed homeowners. Probably most of them don’t have education beyond high school, but they were resourceful and energetic enough to take on one of the few relatively good-paying and steady jobs available without a college education. I assume that many of them save their hard-earned money to send their kids to college, and that their children are proud to see a dad who works hard every day.  

In fact, trash collectors should be held up as role models to shatter racist stereotypes of African-American men. So, maybe the whole thing should be turned around as a compliment. And maybe the racist hacker needs to repeat an English class at one of the small schools at Berkeley High in order to improve his or her spelling.