My grandma tells me that she would have gone to law school, if it had been an option for her. She went to the free city college instead and became a secretary and excellent typist (if you want to see my grandma laugh until she cries, play her this video over and over).

Everyone has favorite stories, and I think about my grandma’s. The year before kindergarten, she would fold her picture books under her arm and walk to the neighborhood school with the older kids; that’s how excited she was to be a student.

Another one: My family took baby-me to Washington D.C. and when we got to the hotel, they told us that, despite the reservation, all the cribs were taken. My parents tried to work it out but there was an impasse at the check-in counter until my grandma leaned in and told the hotelier, “Well, I guess you’ll have to go out and buy her a crib.” After that, they were able to find something for me.

When I want to advocate for something I channel my dad, who once just sat in a person’s office and frowned at him until he started taking the action my dad was looking for, but I know that in fact he channels his mother’s frown. My grandma is in general a wonderfully pleasant person, but she knows how to argue on her family’s behalf. It’s obvious she could have been a great lawyer.

The fact that she didn’t have that opportunity didn’t ruin my grandma’s life - she is awesome anyway - but it means that people missed out on the chance to be represented by her.

A few weeks ago, a colleague came up to me and said, “So, you really don’t like sexism, huh?” He asked me if I was a classical music fan, and when I said no he still told me the story of Robert Schumann, a 19th-century composer who married another composer named Clara. He told her to stop composing once they married, but according to my colleague some of Robert’s best work included pieces of Clara’s compositions. “Just think of the beautiful music we will never get to hear,” he told me.

I care about educational equity out of compassion for the students who are not getting the experiences and chances at success they deserve, but also out of selfishness. When we don’t universally develop critical thinking in children, when we avoid conceptual understanding in favor of quick algorithms, when we stomp out creativity in favor of docility, when we rely on outdated textbooks and overstuffed classrooms and undersupported teachers, we rob ourselves. We lose a doctor who could innovate treatment, an entrepreneur who fills a hole we lack the vision to see, the poet who might give us just the shift in view we were waiting for.

One charming aspect of my new neighborhood in Oakland is that people block the streets. If my neighbors can’t find an open spot by the sidewalk, they park where they are and throw on their hazard lights while they run in to take care of something. When I pull out of the driveway so that my roommate can get into the garage, other cars just have to pass against traffic. A couple weeks ago, drivers were stopped on both sides of the street chatting, apparently realizing only when they crossed each other that they needed to converse. I had to wait just a moment before they moved to let me pass. My favorite was my neighbor blocking me in so that he could move some stuff from a car into his truck. Setting his truck in the middle of the road, he put some cones out as if that made it legit. He told me it would only be a few minutes, so I waited; I wasn’t in a rush. Though it can be inconvenient, I love this about my neighborhood because it makes me feel like it’s ours - we all live here together and sometimes that means taking up space and sometimes that means going around.

I was out of town last week when the police rioted against the Oakland Occupiers, but my roommate said that even though we live over a mile away it felt like a war zone when she stepped outside, with the floating gas and the exploding noises and the helicopters that hung around for days. She asked me, why are we talking about shutting down schools when we can afford this much police action? If they were worried about sanitation, wouldn’t it have been cheaper to put out some porta-potties? Why are these people being treated like they’re worthless?

I was thinking about all this on Wednesday as I walked to the Port of Oakland in a group of thousands, joining in the chant of “Whose streets? Our streets! Whose town? Our town!” I felt a little bad for cars trapped at intersections, and sometimes marchers would pause to let the cars through and sometimes other marchers would yell LET’S GO and weave through the vehicles. One commuter turned into the middle of the march and we laughed, knowing he wasn’t getting anywhere. Usually cars control the streets but sometimes pedestrians can. I saw children and rabbis and drummers and teachers and unemployed people and artists and people with disabilities taking a special protest bus and some guy in a devil costume I disagreed with and a dude in a blue bodysuit and American flag shorts who used to be my roommate’s neighbor. I saw some police on motorcycles hanging back, seeming afraid to engage, not wanting to provoke more outrage. Usually police control the city but sometimes people can.

We found friends as soon as we got to the plaza, and as we approached the port there was one open space in the crush and a friend I really needed to catch up with was standing right in the middle of it. We talked about teaching history, and the temptation to teach current events instead. I had just told my 6^th graders that class hierarchy is a primary characteristic of civilization, to set them up to study Mesopotamia. We wondered how young is too young to teach power analysis. I wondered how many times in history police forces have tried to brutally knock down a movement, and then had to quietly stand back as the movement clogged the streets the next week, that’s how many people cared.

At the port, a woman in a union t-shirt found a drummer and broke into West African dance, shouting, “A revolution without dancing is not a revolution worth having.” Around the corner, a crowd gathered around a live performance of Redemption Song. People climbed on top of trucks and shouted. There was a memorial to Oscar Grant and other victims of police brutality. Protesters walked around complimenting each other’s signs. A man yelled into a microphone: “The port is supposed to have a shift change in ten minutes! Is that going to happen? No!” We passed by a sign that reminded me, COMPASSION IS REVOLUTIONARY. I took it literally.

On our way out, we danced to some Lady Gaga blasting out of a bicycle stereo. The man voguing next to us yelled, “you go San Francisco” and we yelled, “we’re in Oakland! Oakland!” Personally, I wasn’t interested in shutting down the port for too long. The workers and the city both need the money. But I was happy to help shut it down for a little while, to show that we could, to give a reminder: There are a lot of people in this city, and these streets are our streets too.

I received an excellent email from my friend Ujamaa in response to this blog. She is currently overseas, teaching and writing excellent emails. Patriarchy goes international! Since I have never much liked soccer (basketball’s where it’s at), I’ll leave it to her:

“So  I was meeting my “friend” (more like closest thing to a friend but not really a friend) Ozzie who was going to teach me how to ride a motorcycle. And this was right after the netherlands vs. argentina game. And another guy that also lives in the same dorm came up to me while I was waiting in the lobby, and we were chatting. And Ozzie comes out and, you know, says hi to me and then turns to this other guy and goes “oh man did you see the match last night? blah blah blah” And he and this other guy have a little 3 minute chat about soccer, and not once does he even think that I might be interested, and is basically completely ignoring me. And then the other guy leaves and Ozzie turns to me and starts talking about motorcycles etc., but it never once occurred to him that I might watch soccer. Which… well really pissed me off. And also confused me, because I wanted to join in the  conversation about it, and I was willing to overlook his obvious sexism (maybe he just assumed I was like every other American who doesn’t like soccer?) . But at the same time any way of bringing myself into the conversation would have felt forced since he hadn’t opened it up for me. So that kind of sucked to feel guilty about loving I sport that I played for about 9 years growing up.

And on another somewhat related note about soccer: did you ever play soccer growing up? I don’t know if you noticed this, but I did since my brother also played. They are WAY harsher about giving out cards and fouls in girl’s soccer. One explanation is “girls have to be dainty and play by the rules”, but my personal opinion is that the policy is enforcing the subconscious belief that “overt displays of aggression by girls should be punished”. And every time I watch men’s soccer part of me gets really sad that a) women would never be able to get away with some of the things that men do and b) that no one likes women’s soccer as much because its “not as exciting” whatever that means.

So, yeah, anyways, I’m a feminist. And I love that you are too. Feel free to share any unfiltered/unedited frustrations you have with me, and I will get suitably riled up for you!”

There you go, folks - if you have anything you would like Ujamaa to get riled up over on your account, feel free to leave it in the comments.