State Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas (D-Culver City) was at his pleasantly pedantic best last Friday afternoon when he detoured his campaign for his next higher office into the spacious Robert Frost Auditorium.
For 60 minutes, he gave a textbook display of how adults, and especially a fulltime politician, and students should interact with each other, with respect, virtually as peers.
This was the antithesis of a shrug-off campaign stop. The former teacher looked happy to be back in a classroom, and he did not act as if he were double-parked. The former Los Angeles City Councilman, state Assemblyman and leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference said that teaching high school, shortly after college, “has been the highlight of my career to date.”
Patiently, he took all of the time the eager students wanted with him, which alone distinguished him from some visitors.
No matter how tempting it may have been for both sides to kibitz, neither side did. This was a thoroughgoing classroom exercise.
Carefully Weighted
A compelling orator he deftly seeded his responses with measured witticisms that kept the students alert and engaged without distracting the crowd or steering into a ditch.
Peppered with a steady flow of thoughtful questions by a selection of Culver City High School students, Sen. Ridley-Thomas paused, parried and dug into his fertile mind to produce answers on the level and of the breadth that he would have given their parents or anyone else expected to vote in the June election.
The senator’s appearance was timely because he is in a perspiring race with a political opposite, Los Angeles City Councilman Bernie Parks, to succeed Yvonne Brathwaite Burke on the County Board of Supervisors.
Silbiger Friendship
Introduced by his friend, City Councilman Gary Silbiger, Sen. Ridley-Thomas promptly won over his audience when he disdained launching into a lecture and, instead, began fielding their questions. Not, however, before he tested them on the size of the state Senate, 40 members, and of the state Assembly, 80 members.
His answers to random back-to-back questions will illustrate the range of subjects Sen. Ridley-Thomas was asked to cover.
Following an opening volley about a state healthcare plan package, a student wanted to know whether he favored the three strikes law. Pacing with a hand-held microphone along the floor in front of the stadium-style seating, he said Three Strikes is “bad law” for several reasons. Too often it unduly penalizes a third-time offender for
an infraction that may not rise to the level of prison time dictated by the code, and it is
expensive.
A Bad Idea
Sen. Ridley-Thomas said a wholesale release of California prisoners, due to severely overcrowded conditions, “would be hugely problematic.” First, it would “probably escalate the homeless crisis,” and secondly it would dump a massive number of men into society without skills to fairly compete in the workplace. Perhaps to the surprise of his attentive audience, the senator said that “a high number of people in jail cannot read.”
The next student surprised the Sacramento senator by asking if he believed “in stronger sex education” and whether he approved of separate classrooms for boys and girls.
The senator genuinely paused and responded, frankly, “I don’t know. What would you do?’’
In view of the number of teenage pregnancies and dropouts, the student said some changes in the sex education curriculum seemed mandatory.
Higher Office
Noting that Sen. Ridley-Thomas has increasingly widened his sphere of influence by winning three different offices in the last two decades, a student wondered if he would run for the U.S. Senate.
Again, Sen. Ridley-Thomas was direct and firm in replying. “It is not likely I would consider Congress,” he said. “I am more interested in local government as a way of engaging because those offices are more hands-on.”
Veering into a discussion of gay rights and the vulnerability of gay persons, the senator criticized those who are “caught up in homophobic impulses,” in alluding to the recent homicide in Oxnard of a gay teenager.
“I encourage people to be wary not only of what they say but what they do,” he said. In his most erudite response, Sen. Ridley-Thomas identified himself as an ethicist, said “I don’t want to preach,” and then went into a scholarly examination of the state of law.
As for Cuba
He also answered inquiries about re-opening trade relations with Cuba (he is in favor), water rights, campaign reform and a death-with-dignity bill.
As a father of two young sons, the 53-year-old Sen. Ridley-Thomas could not resist imparting a speck of fatherly advice for the upper grade students who have university on their minds.
Remember who you are when you leave home, he said, even though no family members or old friends may be around. “Don’t forget your basic values when you go to college,” he said.