Segregated high school proms divide Georgia's students

[AlphaCentauri]

Source: Telegraph

Kera Nobles' senior prom should have been a high point of her life, as she celebrated graduation from her home town's school system after 13 years of education. But instead it has left the normally bubbly 17-year-old smouldering with anger. For, following a local tradition that seems extraordinary in a country which has elected its first black president, there was not just one formal dance for the 54 classmates who graduated from Montgomery County High, but two.

On the first night, a prom was held for the school's white students; the following night came the celebration for Miss Nobles and the school's other blacks.

"I don't like segregated proms, there's no need for it," she said, her eyes still burning with hurt. "We went to school together and we all graduated at the same time. I feel like I've been deprived of something that was important to me."

In early summer when Georgia peaches are at their sweetest and high school seniors can't wait to be loosed on the world, separate proms are part of the bitter aftertaste of segregation that persists in parts of America's Deep South.

For nearly 40 years state school pupils have been educated together. They have played sports together and developed close bonds of friendship, before finding themselves face to face with a cruel ghost from America's past.



Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5586617/Segregated-high-school-proms-divide-Georgias-students.html

[Kerrytravelers]

1. My question is this:

Why aren't the adults (district admins, school admin, teachers, parents, community, etc.) being held accountable for this clear racism?

And what if someone doesn't fall into the Black or White categories? Asian? Hispanic? They just don't get a prom? Are they "reclassified"? Is there some form of classification based on race, you know, Apartheid, going on in that town???

:shrug: But... but... but... racism is dead. Whites aren't racist anymore. Sotomayor is a racist, but white people? No way! :eyes:

[get the red out]

6. Good question!

Where would kids from other racial groups go to prom? Is somebody at the school analyzing each kid to determine their predominant "race"?

Would these people let somebody like Tiger Woods go to prom at all?

They should have a prom for human beings and exclude all who disagree because they don't fit the description.

[Wapsie B]

2. Two questions: This still goes on in this country?

Call me clueless but I thought that sort of thing was outlawed long ago. Secondly, has this been on any domestic media sources? Sad that it has to be a media outlet from the UK to talk about this.

[jaxx]

5. Here's one from the NYT

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/magazine/24prom-t.html

[Wapsie B]

7. Thanks. I certainly see that I can cross Mt. Vernon, Ga. off my must places to see list.

[PerpetuallyDazed]

9. From the article:

"When the actor Morgan Freeman offered to pay for last year’s first-of-its-kind integrated prom at Charleston High School in Mississippi, his home state, the idea was quickly embraced by students — and rejected by a group of white parents, who held a competing “private” prom. (The effort is the subject of a documentary, “Prom Night in Mississippi,” which will be shown on HBO in July.)"

Wow!

[izquierdista]

8. It's the South

There's a reason this place has a reputation as a conservative backwater -- it is one. While you can outlaw official racist behavior of schools, you can't outlaw it in the free choices that people make. You just have to hope that after doing things right for a while, that it will sink in (but it obviously hasn't). Black and white are so culturally different in the South, that you might as well be talking about having separate Israeli and Palestinian proms, or separate Catholic and Protestant proms. Hell, they should have separate proms for people that grew up here and for those whose families moved from "up North". Or better yet, have everybody home schooled and they can have their own prom right in the living room. :silly:

[No Elephants]

17. The two proms took place in a "community center," which I assume is

public property. The article does not come right out and say that the school is involved in the segregated proms, but that seems to be the case because the segregated proms are being distinguished from a "private prom" that white parents held in protest when an integrated prom was attempted. So, the segregated proms do indeed seem to be "official" racist action.

If neither government nor public property is involved in any way, then, sure, it is a private party and every fucking asshole racist has a right to exclude whomever s/he wants.

[WriteDown]

20. The school does not appear to be paying for the "white"

prom. It appears to be a private prom held by some white parents. The article is poorly written at best.

[jmowreader]

29. It doesn't appear the school paid for the "black" prom either

So much for privatization. The parents of the seniors set this up--the white parents set up the elaborate white prom and wouldn't sell tickets to nonwhites (or at least priced the white prom out of the range of the nonwhite families); the nonwhite parents set up the other prom, and since all the white girls already went to the white prom...

[Flora]

22. Goodness...

That's rather an all encompassing, bigoted statement about the South. (here on a thread about bigotry and racism) While I am aware that racism does indeed exist still in pockets of the South, this portion of the US does not deserve your blanket reference that all is "backwater" and racist.

I was born and raised deep in the South, graduated public high school in 1978 and attended prom with ALL my classmates. As for as I know, it was that way for years and years before my senior year and it's been that way since.

[izquierdista]

24. If you'd travel outside the South, you would know

It's bigoted to say that the place is full of bigots? Hmm, let me think on that one. It exists not in pockets, but in vast swathes with small islands of tolerance popping up here and there to break the landscape. To move to the South is to travel back in time, to a less tolerant and more primitive era. Why, some of the Baptists are so proud of being primitive, they put it in the name of their church.

[WriteDown]

27. At least its not as bad as Ohio....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3928051

[bitchkitty]

26. The reason it gets that reputation

is because these small backwater towns and their racist asshole residents make the rest of the South, the larger cities and the towns where the people aren't batshit crazy, look racist and crazy. The media only reports these newsworthy incidents, of course. So the entire world sees the South as you do.

There are plenty of decent people in the South. It's much harder to be left in the South. It takes dedication and courage. I applaud them!

[Obamanaut]

32. Yes, it still goes on. Have you heard of Black Miss America, etc? nt

[jaxx]

3. Jim Crow is alive and well in some places.

What a damn shame!

[get the red out]

4. This is the weirdest thing

I have seen this story on TV; and the reporters always end up saying "it's what the parents want". Some of these people try to claim the "cultural differences" are too great, but then how does the rest of the country have one prom per high school if that is the case? This is idiotic and this high school gets the evil eye from the nation (and world, since this article is from the UK) every spring and still does nothing to change this.

I remember in 1982 I got to college, my first experience outside my tiny all white community, only to find that the student center cafeteria "self segregated". I was disappointed that in 1982 all the black kids sat in one area and the white kids in another. No one forced that, it just happened and I thought it was pretty bad. Now we are in 2009 and people try to justify forced separation by "custom". Amazing.

[Mz Pip]

15. I'm pretty sure I know how

either of my kids would have reacted to the idea of "seperate proms." They would have started a boycott and refused to go at all.

Don't these kids get the concept of teenage rebellion? Most of these kids were 18 and it seems like they could have done a bit more than half heartedly complain about it.

Mz Pip

[fortyfeetunder]

33. Book recommendation --

There is a book I read to understand the self-segregation situation and it gave me some insight:

"Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?" by Beverly Daniel Tatum

Since I work with kids of all races, I wanted to understand that as I got involved in school activities.

[JayMusgrove]

10. What nonsense! I wonder how many years

will have to go by for this foolishness to stop.

[radhika]

11. The 'white prom' went first in both stories

In this one, and in the NYTimes link, 'white' night was first. Followed by 'non-white' night. Back of the prom bus.

[LuckyLib]

12. Yup. And there is no doubt which is the "real" prom.

[Obamanaut]

34. The reason the white prom went first in both linked articles is because

it was the same town, the same prom, even had some of the same names in the two articles.

And the Telegraph story is nearly a month late, as this was a topic last month on DU.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=5754508

[JayMusgrove]

13. $200 a single ticket, What kind of prom costs that?

I can't understand this.

Also, did anyone note that the Principal is quoted in the UK article as saying next year will be different, but not so in the NYT?

[Cirque du So-What]

14. $200 is the price of exclusion

It's an economic barrier to reinforce the notion that African Americans are not welcome at their lily-white soireé.

[Dappleganger]

16. You bet it is!

Not to mention the cost of the clothes, getting the hair done, the LIMO.

[No Elephants]

18. I hope some enterprising lawyer gets hold of one of these students and brings a Section 1983

lawsuit against these mef's. So what if the racist white parents hold a "private prom?" Let them. And let their names be published in the paper and let the world see them and their offspring for what they are. The Constitution does not prevent that. But, the Constitution most certainly does prevent public school involvement in "separate but equal."

[hedgehog]

19. My daughter bought her dress used from a group that donated the

proceeds to charity and went with a bunch of her female friends. I think one of them wore a nice tunic over dress pants. The tickets were about $50 I think.

[No Elephants]

21. Gotta "love" theTelegraph for its

"objectivity"

"Harley Boone, a graduating white student who posed by her parents' outdoor swimming pool, told her: 'There's always been two separate proms. It don't seem like a big deal around here, it's just what we know and what our parents have done for so many years.

"In our school system it's not really about being racist or having all white friends or all black friends. We all hang out together, we're all in the same classes, and we all eat lunch together at the same table. It's not about what colour you are."

Miss Boone's comments outraged many and she found herselfcruellycaricatured as a racist on a YouTube video that has been widely viewed.

Betty McCoy, the editor of the local newspaper, the Montgomery Monitor, has watched with dismay as segregated proms continue year after year. "It's really the fault of a few families," she said. "This is really a friendly and well integrated community.'

Betty McCoy, the editor of the local newspaper, the Montgomery Monitor, has watched with dismay as segregated proms continue year after year. "It's really the fault of a few families," she said. "This is really a friendly and well integrated community."


Tell me, what is cruel about portraying as a racist someone who thinks segregation is okay because it's always been done that way?

This also tells me the schools in that godforsaken town have not done a great job of teaching.

[Frisbee]

23. "It don't seem like a big deal around here..."

I guess they couldn't squeeze in a grammar class somewhere between creationism and southern history/pride.

[Frisbee]

25. Color me stunned....

It doesn't surprise me at all that there are still people who want to do this, it absolutely floors me that there are still places that actually still get away with it. Just like so many white southerners automatically make judgments based on a persons race, I immediately make assumptions when I here a white person say they are a southerner. I wish they'd quit proving me right.

[WriteDown]

28. Or white northerners...

Does not matter where you go in the US or even around the world.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3928051

[LWolf]

30. I'm truly shocked to know that something like this still occurs.

Why have no legal steps been taken? And, will anyone take them now?

[Obamanaut]

31. The Telegraph must have had some space to fill, this is an old story.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=5754508