I don’t know if I’m allowed to “speak” on this issue, being white, but I lived through school desegregation in my state during the late 60’s. Barely educated children were placed into literate previously all white classes. One black child who couldn’t write anything but the word “and” entered my seventh grade class, but what he lacked in reading ability he made up for in determination. He wrote that one word all over every test paper. He tried. I have begun to wonder about his mother. That first year, parents were given a choice if where their children attended school, as the separate school campuses were still in existence. She must have been desperate for her son to have a chance, and he was not treated kindly in our class, I am ashamed to say. Another young man was given his “birthday licks” with a board, by some of the white guys in our school system. I wonder where they learned that.
I also remember separate entrances and waiting rooms at the doctors offices.
Those complaining of racism today have no clue what others endured to give them the opportunities African Americans have today, and they are squandering those opportunities on victimhood and gimme language, Obamaphones and reliance on the public dole.
For what it’s worth — the “birthday spanking” is a bad old color blind custom, though the context where you saw it particularly highlighted how foolish it looked. It’s a dominance/submission game where instead people should be seeking to submit to a kind God only so they may stand in all else.