Dancing In The Street

ESDAY, JUNE 9, 2020·READING TIME: 11 MINUTES

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KhbM2mqhCQ

Calling out around the world
Are you ready for a brand new beat
Summer’s here and the time is right
For dancing in the street

They’re dancing in Chicago (dancing in the street)
Down in New Orleans (dancing in the street)
In New York City (dancing in the street)

All we need is music, sweet music
There’ll be music everywhere
There’ll be swinging, swaying, and records playing
Dancing in the street.

(Martha and the Vandellas)

I wish I’d spent the last half century studying dancing instead of breaking bones. Want to know why I’ve spent half a century studying martial sciences? Simple: I was born on a battlefield. I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t want it. But there I was.

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In FIRST GRADE, the teachers at Alta Loma elementary school sorted us into reading groups. There were three groups, I remember. The white and Asian kids went into one group. Some white kids and black girls (and a few boys, including me) went into the second. Black and Latino boys and some of the others went in the third. I was aware pretty quickly that these groups were based on reading ability. My best friend Howard Kokubun went into the first…