Saturday, May 1, 2021
We had lunch at Grand Harbor Restaurant with James and Gary, Austin and Hannah. I sat next to Gary, who is no longer affilitated with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. I guess the school took a much stronger stand on the Black Lives Matter movement than Gary was comfortable with, so he removed himself from the Board in protest. That's a big deal, as the school was so much a part of Gary's life. I listened to Gary talk pretty much endlessly about the sorry state of the world, the over-reaction of the COVID pandemic, the outrage of the BLM movement and critical race theory infecting our way of life. It was essentially all the Fox News talking points compressed into a stream-of-consciousness rant over dim sum and pork buns. Wow. Gary did not sound well at all. I think the loss of the connection to the school is a serious blow. I'm sorry he's no longer on the Board. White people engaging in conversations about race bring out the best and the worst in us. I just listened to what Gary had to say. I didn't say a word and challenge anything. It wasn't my lunch and wasn't my place to make waves. But waves I could have made. Gary is a very accomplished and amazing person, but the things he was saying sounded crazy to me. Just crazy! History is very clear on the degree of black violence and supression throughour our history. Very clear. But I wasn't about to get into that today. The man is hurting, and consoling himself by venting.
The rest of the day we hung out at home and relaxed.
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