The controversy continues over photographs taken during the student protest march on May 15. While police surveillance is always troubling, we don’t think many in the community were terribly alarmed by the high school safety officer doing his job, accompanying a student march off-campus and taking photographs to document the event.
The “Lockyer manual” has been given as the source for a right not be photographed, but that policy statement by the California Attorney General was written to limit spying on political groups following the infiltration in 2003 by an undercover officer into the Peace Fresno anti-war organization. That’s hardly the situation here. No police were infiltrating any organization. No clandestine surveillance was being conducted. Just snapshots in broad daylight on public streets.
And hey, why isn’t everyone talking about the real issues here? The rally was supposed to be about immigration reform and about students trying to afford further education. Please, let’s respect the students and pursue that discussion, instead.
There are girls, too
A reader recently took us to task for not covering girls sports to the extent that we cover boys sports. She’s right – we don’t. And we can try to do something about it, seeking to bring increased attention to the involvement of local girls in sports. We also expect that televised coverage of local sports, including girls teams, on the new television channel SVTV27 will help spread awareness within our community.
But this issue is not unique to Sonoma Valley or to the Sun. Boys sports have long been the more popular, and in major papers around the country coverage of youth sports is predominantly about boys.
For whatever reason, our local high school football and boys basketball games in particular draw many members of the community beyond the players’ family and friends. We think outside attendance is good, bringing our community together around a common interest, as people are literally rooting for the same team. But far fewer attend the volleyball matches or girls basketball games, which we acknowledge is a shame, for the dedication of the athletes and coaches is every bit as strong and the drama can be as compelling.
Individual sports like track and swimming tend to have similar numbers of girls and boys participate, but even in soccer, a wonderful team sport for youth that continues to grow in popularity in the U.S., boys turn out in larger numbers, as they do for baseball, basketball, and tennis. Would greater media coverage change that situation?
Just wondering … would perceptions change if, instead of “Lady Dragons,” the high school girls teams were known as the “Dragons” and the boys were, say, the “Sir Dragons”?
