Sidwell Friends

The news has been bizarrely full of footage of President Elect Barack Obama’s two girls Sasha and Malia starting school at The Sidwell Friends School. For some reason, the presidential daughters enrolling at Sidwell is striking some people as surprising. I don’t know why, given that both Chelsea Clinton and Al Gore Jr. went there. Tricia and Julie Nixon went there. Heck, the school was founded in 1883. Nancy Reagan went there. Teddy Roosevelt sent his offspring there in the early 1900’s. It is one of a very short list of DC schools which would be considered by any area parents who care about education and have some dough.

I can’t tell if the news coverage of Sasha and Malia’s matriculation is the news people being racist dicks because so many Washingtonian politicos will explain they send their kids to private school because the DC public schools are notoriously crime-ridden and don’t offer the education they should and (wait for the lowered voice here) predominantly black. Sidwell Friends has always been known for a progressive approach with a motto of “Eluceat Omnibus Lux” which means roughly “Let the light shine out from and by all.” A good attitude to teach children.

My first thought, however, on seeing the news, was that Sasha and Malia were going to grow up to be socially-conscious punks. Of course I knew some DC punks, when I lived there, who would imply they were raised by wolves and who attended Sidwell Friends. But I wasn’t sure why the whole punk association immediately leapt to mind. Because the works of Henry Rollins and Ian MacKaye inform so much of everything in DC punk, even decades after either was likely to be seen in a punk club, I immediately went to look up where they went to high school. I then kicked myself for forgetting. Henry Rollins went to The Bullis School, which is arguably a comparably good preparatory school, but with a more military bent than the Quaker Sidwell Friends. More notably Dischord Records‘ Ian MacKaye and various members of seminal straight edge band Minor Threat went to the public school Wilson High School. The controversial anti-racism song “Guilty of Being White” was based on some of the young punks experiences being picked on going to a school where they were part of a 25% to 30% minority.

The Sidwell Friends and punk mental association on my part was because Ian MacKaye’s parents both went to Sidwell Friends. William R. MacKaye and Mary Anne MacKaye met there and wrote a book about the school called Mr. Sidwell’s School: A Centennial History 1883-1983 which was published by The Sidwell Friends School.

Living in Los Angeles, I was stunned last year, when someone working for me asked what a Republican is and had never heard of the two party system, much less voted. The DC punk scene is political and at least somewhat informed, even though the reason for jumping on the tables is often just the fun of making a scene in public. Dana Hull, writing for Salon, reminisces about die-ins, where scene-makers would protest anything from apartheid to the threat of nuclear war by loudly acting out being killed. I’m not saying that every DC punk votes in every election or only dresses like a freak to protest meat or alcohol abuse or the patriarchy or the oppression of something or other. But the idea was there that one might want to think about what one stands for and share that with the world.

For me, coming out of the DC punk scene, albeit a long time after the start of Fugazi and Black Flag, I mean it when I talk about my ideals. I’m appalled that there are people who claim to be making punk smut, yet spit on the notion that what they create should mean anything or even be mildly original. And, yes, I know Black Flag technically is sorta from Los Angeles, but Henry Rollins is the best-known member and the band was very much informed by the DC punk mentality. Much as Blue Blood might be Los Angeles-based, but a lot of my heart is still DC.

One of my big initial goals with Blue Blood in print was to show that a woman could, not only own her sexuality, but flaunt it, and still be intelligent and well-spoken and interested in and informed about the world around her. Fast forward sixteen years from Blue Blood‘s start in 1992 and I realize that some scantily-clad women are vibrant and alive and smart, some are vibrant and alive but unlikely to be rocket scientists, and some are just easy on the eyes.

By the way, the Henry Rollins store is having a clearance sale this week. Other notables who have attended Sidwell Friends include Xena’s Alexandra Tydings of punk bands Annabelle Kickbox and She’s Seen You Naked and Bill Nye the Science Guy. Root Boy Slim of Root Boy Slim and The Sex Change Band fame was expelled from The Sidwell Friends School.

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Posted by Amelia G on January 12, 2009. Filed under Blue Blood. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry