Word: oaklanders
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...comes to achieving in school, Za'kettha Blaylock knows that even dreaming of success can mean living a nightmare. She would, above all things, like to work hard, go to college and become a doctor. But to many other black 14-year-old girls in her corner of Oakland, these ideas are anathema. The telephone rings in her family's modest apartment, and the anonymous voice murmurs daggers. "We're gonna kill you," the caller says. Za'kettha knows the threat comes from a gang of black girls, one that specializes not in drugs or street fights but in terrorizing...
...speaking standard English, showing an interest in ballet or theater, having white friends or joining activities other than sports. "They'll run up to you and grab your books and say, 'I'll tear this book up,' " says Shaquila Williams, 12, a sixth-grader at Webster Academy in East Oakland. "They'll try and stop you from doing your work." Honor students may be rebuked for even showing up for class on time...
...like you don't care." Social success depends partly on academic failure; safety and acceptance lie in rejecting the traditional paths to self-improvement. "Instead of trying to come up with the smart kids, they try to bring you down to their level," says eighth-grader Rachel Blates of Oakland. "They don't realize that if you don't have an education, you won't have anything -- no job, no husband, no home...
...truism to say the problem most often begins at home. When parents are not able to transmit the values of achievement, the ever present peer group fills the vacuum. Moniqua Woods, 12, a student at the Webster Academy in Oakland, says it is easy to spot neglected children because they "come to school every day yawning and tired. You know they stayed out late that night." Concurs classmate Mark Martin, also 12: "Some of the kids' parents are on drugs. You go in their house, and you can smell it." Such a homelife can further strengthen the attitude that school...
While some parents filed into lecture halls,Ron and Adrienne Yank of Oakland, California,parents of Veronica A. Yank '93 of Winthrop House,found a less conventional way to keep themselvesbusy yesterday...