‘Blackspanic College’ reflects on race, Mideast, life
“Blackjack, put down the news editor!” I pleaded.
Blackjack Loco, a strapping, 25-year-old gangbanger on parole, aka photo editor for the student newspaper at Los Angeles Southland College, was striding across the newsroom with the news editor, a hellasexy coed named Tashena, slung over his shoulder like the “Rape of the Sabines.” As the faculty adviser for “The Explorer,” I was trying to get Blackjack, Tashena and the rest of the newspaper staff organized. There was also the assistant photo editor/high school gangbang wannabe Holden; Tyrone, the movie reviewer/porn addict; Nakida the sports editor/exotic dancer; and Leroy, Caveman and Mars, The Three Stooges of Rap.
So begins “Blackspanic College,” a 58,000-word memoir about a white, middle age, Jewish and neurotic, not to mention Afrophobic, journalist with poor people skills — that would be me — who becomes a teacher and faculty adviser for the school newspaper at a predominantly black and Hispanic community college in South Central Los Angeles before, during, and after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Initially overwhelmed, I’m befriended by some of the students, especially Blackjack Loco, a “retired” gangbanger fresh out of prison, and the wall between insecure teacher and semi-feral students, and black and white, starts to crack. Against the backdrop of 9/11 I’m accused of being a racist, forcing students to choose between old and new alliances. In my last semester I assign my public relations students to create a P.R. campaign to bring peace to the Middle East, and try to explain the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in terms of ethnic frictions in America.
More than a memoir, “Blackspanic College” examines racial divisions that continue to evolve within society. The story takes place before MAGA or wokeness, but it touches on evergreen issues like race, politics, and current events, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that remain relevant and controversial today.
I was an adjunct instructor at Los Angeles Southwest College from January 1998 through May 2002. To protect the innocent and spare the guilty from cheap shots (and me from meddlesome lawsuits), I changed the names of the college and most of the people there, but they are all real, as are the events described.
in an addendum, I track down some of my students to find out what they’re doing 20 years later, and in an epilogue, I update things from the college to the Middle East, and identify a new demographic trend — multiracial — and its impact on society: “We’ll have to find a new way to define ourselves and a new way to hate.”
How factual is “Blackspanic College”?
I did not begin teaching at the college with the intent to write a book, and I didn’t record or take notes of conversations. It wasn’t until months after I’d left the job that I realized that therein lay a story. Read more.