Sandy Banks: Just call him Bubba

Maybe I don't have much of a sense of humor, but I don't find anything funny about the prank played on a handful of black students at Charter Oak High School in Covina.   

Their names were changed in a yearbook photo of the Black Student Union and replaced with "ghetto" names.  So kids whose parents named them Jordan, Sierra, Paisley, Evanne will now be remembered forever by classmates and alumni as Shaniqua, Tay Tay, Crisphy, Laquan.

That's funny only if you are heartless and dumb. 

Apparently a student on the yearbook staff figured it would be a hysterical graduation send-off for black classmates on their suburban San Gabriel Valley campus, where only 4% of the students are black.  School officials didn't catch the prank until the yearbooks were being handed out. 

Television news videos about the prank include interviews with wounded kids, disgusted parents and mealy-mouthed school officials -- whose response was to offer stickers with the students' correct names to be pasted over the offending caption. 

Officials ought to be worried about more than the hurt feelings of the nine black students.  Lift their "Blue Ribbon School" award banner out front and Charter Oak's white sheet is showing. 

Fair or not, the act of one juvenile jerk has made an entire campus look like a hotbed of bigotry and ignorance. That's how stereotyping works.  Shaniqua or Tay Tay can feel your pain on that.

The culprit has apparently been identified. He's a junior so he'll be back.  Here's my two cents on his punishment:  He does school service with the Black Student Union next fall; he's the guy at their fundraiser who gets dumped in the dunk tank and pelted with plastic balls.

And in his senior yearbook photos next June, he gets to be known by his new name, Bubba.

--  Sandy Banks

Puff the dog -- an update from Sandy Banks

When Sandy Banks wrote about her dog, Puff, she got mail. Lots and lots of mail. And she got inquiries about his health. So many, in fact, it was clearly time for a Puff Update. Sandy writes:

It's been almost four weeks since my little dog Puff was hospitalized and hooked up to an IV, with a diagnosis of diabetes.  So why does it seem so much longer? 

Probably because everyone in the family now has to arrange busy schedules around a 10-pound dog's medical needs.  Puff is on a special diet and has to be fed at the same time each day -- at 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. -- then injected between his tiny shoulders with a squirt of insulin.

We've weathered one crisis. A walk around the block caused his blood sugar to drop and led him to collapse and wobble around like he'd gotten into the vodka. My daughter recognized hypoglycemia and we zapped Puff with 5 cc's of dextrose from a syringe the vet had provided.  He was steady five minutes later. 

Other than that, he's been a good patient.  He's still a little listless, but he eats well and he's beginning to bounce around again.

And Puff wants me to give a shout-out to Ellen DeGeneres.  The talk show host sent him a get-well package of natural food and treats. Mixing "Spot's Stew" with Puff's medically prescribed gruel was the only way to get him to eat. 

He's gained almost two pounds, and it's so nice to cuddle him and not feel those bony ribs.

After running his photo, I'm thinking Puff is going to need a press secretary of his very own.

--Veronique de Turenne

Sandy Banks buys marijuana -- but don't worry, she doesn't inhale

Sandy Banks is buying pot??? Well, yeah, for journalistic purposes. And then flushing it, for legal reasons. And then, because you're a very vocal group, getting all kinds of e-mail from readers about the escapade. More from her column:

I've learned enough from readers this week to understand why some consider it a wonder drug: The registered nurse crippled by a genetic joint disease who was able to toss her Vicodin and use her hands again. The disabled veteran with kidney failure who was vomiting every day until he began smoking marijuana. The single dad confined to a wheelchair after a traffic accident who is now able to climb a flight of stairs.

And I was surprised that I could have learned how easy the process of buying marijuana is by hanging around the mall, talking to 18-year-olds.

In the 12 years since California became the first state in the nation to legalize marijuana for medical use, the drug's distribution network has grown from a small collective of cannabis clubs to a sprawling network of unregulated dispensaries -- some with their own prescribing physicians.

More on the back and forth about medical marijuana and the law in Sandy's full column.

Oh -- and did you feel that? A small earthquake near Mammoth Lake this morning.

--Veronique de Turenne

Photo: Associated Press

Sandy Banks: Parents of Jamiel Shaw Jr. speak to City Council

He’s a grieving father, not a politician. He apologized because he didn’t know whether to say “illegal” or “undocumented.” But Jamiel Shaw’s appeal to the Los Angeles City Council for a new law allowing the deportation of gang members made clear that the anti-illegal-immigration movement has a new, and most unlikely, poster child.

Shaw’s teenage son, Jamiel Jr., was killed last month near his Arlington Heights home. The man charged with his murder is an 18th Street gang member, in this country illegally. Now the Shaw family is pushing for a change in the city’s “sanctuary” policy, to allow gang members who are illegal immigrants to be deported.

Anita Shaw, Jamiel Jr.’s mom, is a soldier called home for his funeral from her second tour of duty in Iraq. “I’m safer in Iraq than my son is on the streets of the United States,” she told the council. “And that’s not right.”

The Shaws’ comments drew prolonged applause from the audience, which included a contingent from the border patrol force, the Minutemen Project. Minute-woman Dee Barrow drove in from Upland to support the family’s push for tougher legislation.

“We have enough of our own criminals to worry about,” she said, “without having to worry about the foreign ones.”

--Sandy Banks

Photo: Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times

Sandy Banks' dialogue on race relations sparks reflection

It all started with a column Sandy Banks wrote last week about race, an answer to Carolyn, a reader who thinks Sandy views whites as "insensitive racists" and that blacks should always be angry about something. Sandy writes:

I don't feel that way; I couldn't have said that. And because Carolyn didn't remember "the particulars" of the column, I couldn't defend myself. So I didn't answer.

She was mad at me, which made me mad at her. Which was probably why she ignored my public invitation last week to write back. Or maybe she's no longer reading what I write.

I did, however, hear from almost 100 other readers, sharing their stories of racial slights, strained friendships and awkward moves toward -- or away from -- reconciliation.

It's a provocative conversation and Sandy doesn't shy away. She looks at racism, examines her own words, and offers a few answers. Her full column here.

-- Veronique de Turenne

Image: Tribune Media Services

Sandy Banks: Leave Silda Spitzer alone

Even on the Left Coast, there's been lots of finger-wagging about New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's call-girl escapade. And lots of snarky scrutiny of his wife.

Some women feel betrayed by Silda Wall Spitzer's decision to stand alongside her husband as he apologized -- and later resigned -- because of his trip to Washington, D.C., to consort with a high-priced young call girl.  On the night before Valentine's Day, no less.

We women tend to take this kind of thing personally.

But any long marriage survives on unspoken pacts, commitments and sacrifices. Maybe she likes the power of political life and is trying to prop her husband up. Maybe she'd rather have him see a prostitute than take on a lover, Giuliani style. Maybe she wants to demonstrate for her three teenage daughters what enduring love sometimes requires.

We have no way of knowing, and no need to know. Silda's choice is the province of a husband and wife. Yes, what he did was humiliating. Her drawn face conveyed her pain. She doesn't need our disapproval. And she doesn't owe us an explanation.

-- Sandy Banks

Photo: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times