#berkeley high

Daveed Diggs steps up to support Berkeley High School

Daveed Diggs, the actor and rapper best known for his award-winning dual roles of Thomas Jefferson and Marquis de Lafayette in the original Broadway run of the record-shattering show Hamilton, is coming to the East Bay next week to show some big love to his alma mater, Berkeley High.

On April 17, Diggs will be the guest of honor at the ‘Business Partners & Friends’ fundraiser luncheon at Revival Bar & Kitchen in downtown Berkeley, organized by the volunteer-run Berkeley High School Development Group. The celebrity will do a Q&A with emcee Robin Claire, and is expected to talk about his school days, why he supports BHS, and his work.

Diggs, whose screen credits include Black-ish on ABC and the 2017 movie Wonder, and who is also the vocalist of the experimental hip-hop group clipping, isn’t neglecting BHS students. He also plans to stop by the Berkeley High campus for a special assembly after the lunch on Tuesday, and then will take 6-8 students to Babette at BAMPFA for coffee and cookies, according to Deb Durant of the Berkeley High School Development Group.

Durant said the luncheon is a great way for local business leaders to support “our future leaders.” “We’re witnessing … our youth … making their voices heard and their minds known about the world around them,” she said. “There’s a great movement afoot, and lots of folks in our community … are seeking tangible ways to support the students in their community, discussing the role their local public schools play, and how to provide our children with the resources they need to find their own path to success.”

Daveed Diggs comes to Berkeley High

On April 17, 2018, 'Hamilton' star Daveed Diggs visited his alma mater, Berkeley High School, where he talked to an auditorium packed with students about his days as a high schooler, and why he thinks practicing your craft can lead to good things. Video by Lorin Eleni Gill for Berkeleyside.

Despite being both a Grammy and Tony award-winner, Daveed Diggs, somewhat remarkably, does not consider himself a singer. The Hamilton star, who came to town Tuesday to help raise funds for Berkeley High, his alma mater, told an auditorium full of BHS students gathered for a special assembly that he goes about his life just as he did as a high-schooler: “Always be doing something that I love, and sharing it with people I love.”

He encouraged the students to be themselves and “project their difference” in a world divided by party lines, and he emphasized the importance of practicing one’s craft. Before he was offered the dual roles of the Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson in the hit Broadway show he had never sung in front of an audience before, he said. But, having put in the preparation, he was not only able to do it, but win both those top industry awards for his performance.

Before the assembly, Diggs was guest of honor at a fundraising luncheon at Revival Bar & Kitchen in downtown Berkeley, organized by the volunteer-run Berkeley High School Development Group. There, he spoke of how good a job Berkeley High does in preparing students for life. The star, who was a member of the Jazz Ensemble, appeared in plays and poetry slams and set a not-yet-surpassed hurdles-sprint record while at the high school, told Berkeleyside his “development as a human” really happened at BHS. “At BHS there was always a crazy amount of stuff you could do, or could try out,” he said. Diggs graduated in 2000 and went to Brown University.

There is a penis museum in Iceland

My new friend worked at a preschool where they didn’t discourage masturbating, just told them to do it on their own time

At that preschool, there was a girl who regularly humped her unicorn stuffy, and her parents called it ‘nudging’

The moan of BHS is “ah, a-ah, ooh, stay- stay hydrated Berkeley High!”

A vagina can smell like ‘light, sweet liqueur,’ ‘the Pacific Ocean,’ or ‘somewhere between fish and lilacs’

If a vagina could talk, it would say ‘where’s Brian?’

So: Yesterday, someone made a racist threat from a computer in the Berkeley High library. The message included a warning of a lynching on 9 December, in support of the KKK. 

The school administration has announced that they do know who did it, and are working with the police, but the name has not been released out of concern for the student’s safety. 

So, today, starting around 9:00, two thousand BHS students gathered outside the old City Hall (which, for context, is right next to the police department), where the BSU made a few speeches. There were already several helicopters present, and students commented on the importance of remaining peaceful and sending a good image. 

Around 11:15, they marched up Bancroft to Sproul Plaza, at UC Berkeley, where they met a Cal social justice group. From Sproul, they went up campus to the Campanile. Speakers included BHS and Cal groups, BHS administration, and a few awkward jerks who tried to derail the protest onto their own causes; organizers politely took the mic back whenever someone got off topic. 

By around 1pm, the event was over, and students were going back to class.

Chants included: “No justice, no peace”, “Ain’t no power like the power of the people, ‘cause the power of the people don’t stop”, “Say it loud, I’m Black and proud”, “Unity”, and “You’re the ones that showed us how, UC Berkeley join us now”. 

A BHS student remarked that, when he got the email last night, and coming to school this morning, he had felt distinctly unsafe, what with Berkeley being supposedly so much safer than this, but he was very encouraged by the student presence at the demonstration.

Source for the above: my sister, who was there.

“We didn’t have any problems,” said Officer Byron White, a Berkeley Police spokesman. “From our standpoint it was terrific.”

White said officers took a “crowd management” approach aimed to facilitate the efforts of the marchers, by blocking traffic and keeping the roadways clear. There were no confrontations between students and vehicles, and no one was arrested.

White credited the demonstration’s organizers with making it clear, in a rally at Berkeley High before the march, that the goal was to raise awareness about the hate crime on campus Wednesday and the school’s response to that incident.

The atmosphere of Thursday’s march, which was spirited yet peaceful, has been compared to another march organized by Berkeley High students in December that was part of the Black Lives Matter movement.

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Principal Sam Pasarow, on scene at the demonstration, credited the efforts of its organizers with keeping the event peaceful and focused.

“I absolutely support the protests. The leadership the students have shown today is incredible,” he said. “I’m all in favor of the importance of instructional minutes in the classroom, but this learning experience is incredible for the students.”

Pasarow said he plans to hold an all-school assembly at Berkeley High on Dec. 9 — the day targeted by racist threats left on the library computer Wednesday — that will look at the contributions of the African-American community.

Pasarow said the school is working to find out how the threats were posted, and who is responsible. And he said, though he is generally a proponent of restorative justice practices, “because of the terroristic nature of what happened, I’m not sure restorative justice is effective.”

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Said BHS student Alecia Harger, one of the leaders of the school’s Black Student Union, “It’s really heartening to see this many people turning out. It’s a great event of healing for black students from Berkeley High who had toendure this incident.”

Harger and Nebe Zekaryas, co-presidents of the Berkeley High School Black Student Union, have been credited with organizing Thursday’s demonstration.

Said Berkeley High senior Dante Ryan, of the BHS BSU, “Never have I seen something this unified. All the legends of the civil rights movement are looking down on us real proud.”

Added Berkeley High junior Mayely Luna: “I think it’s amazing how we can all come together for a really important cause and not let this injustice stand.”

Source: Berkeleyside coverage

Go Jackets

I like going to high school football games.  It’s one of my many eccentricities, (since I don’t really like football).

I’m now within walking distance of Berkeley High, so I went to a game last week.  I wore their colors because I love a theme!  It was fun and the burgers were good.

Dress: Tripp, from the 90′s, from a store on Telegraph that’s no longer there; Moto Jacket: H&M from the Waikiki Goodwill; Boots: also Tripp, from Hot Topic; Gear necklace: Sears; Sunglasses: modcloth.com; Bag: Coach from Dillard’s.