Posted on 05/26/2003 2:39:22 AM PDT by oldconservative
This spring, white students at Johnson County High in Wrightsville, Ga., continued a tradition they have followed since desegregation. They held a prom separate from the school prom – for white students only. As did the juniors at neighboring Taylor County High.
News of the separate proms reached Bill O'Reilly at Fox News, who angrily demanded that Gov. Sonny Perdue attend the official Taylor County prom in protest. As columnist Sam Francis writes, O'Reilly seemed miffed that there was no law or authority to stop this outrage:
"You can't sue because the event is being held off-campus. It's a private party, and no person of color is welcome. Yet, the party is being held under the banner of Taylor High's junior prom. Yes, there is an alternative prom where everyone is welcome, but still a number of your classmates do not want to celebrate with you."
Writing in the Los Angeles Times, law student Jeffrey Shapiro seemed even more indignant: "It's hard to imagine that the practice of segregation still exists in the United States, but it does," Shapiro states. "Authorities are powerless to intervene."
Yes, and a good thing they cannot intervene, Jeffrey. For if this country is about anything, it is freedom. And just as the Bill of Rights prevents the state from interfering with what Shapiro or O'Reilly writes or says, the Constitution protects the freedom of school kids in Taylor County, Ga., to associate with whomever they wish
When O'Reilly says that an all-white prom appears to be a snub of black schoolmates, he may be right. But it may also mean the white kids simply prefer to party together. As for Shapiro's assertion that "segregated proms" are one of "the worst public displays of racism in today's America," that is absurd.
The ugliest manifestations of racism today are not all-white proms, but interracial crimes such as gang assaults, gang shootings and gang rapes.
As this term racist is tossed about, perhaps it is time to define it. To this writer, racism means a hatred or hostility toward some other race that manifests itself in a desire to deny the other justice.
What O'Reilly and Shapiro are upset about is something else altogether. For there is no evidence the white kids of Taylor County hate all their black classmates. A preference for socializing with one's own is not hatred. CYO dances used to be restricted to baptized Catholics. That didn't mean the priests and nuns hated all non-Catholics. The same is true for the Newman clubs and Hillel houses on college campuses. These clubs represent the desire of a group to socialize together. This is not racism. It is natural and normal, and there is nothing morally reprehensible about it.
As for the new separatism or self-segregation in schools, this appears to be more the wish of black students than of whites. Here, for example, is Washington Post writer Michael Fletcher describing the graduation events at Penn:
"The presentation of the class of 2003 was the central event at this year's Black Senior Celebration. The ceremony here, attended by almost half of the university's 140 black graduating seniors, followed separate celebrations that honored Asian American and Latino seniors in the weeks leading up to Penn's general graduation ceremony today. University officials say these racially and ethnically themed ceremonies are a way for minority students to celebrate their cultural connections."
If it is acceptable for black students in the Ivy League to hold segregated ceremonies to celebrate their "cultural connections," why is O'Reilly beating up on white high-school kids in rural Georgia for doing the same thing?
Vanderbilt, Michigan State, Michigan, Stanford and Berkeley all host separate ceremonies for black graduates. Across America, writes Fletcher, there are black "fraternities, sororities and culture centers." Black students "study in separate groups, they eat at segregated dining tables, and they unwind at separate parties."
Does this mean black students hate their white classmates? Of course not. They simply prefer to socialize with one another.
At Penn, the university even pays for the kente cloths and the sumptuous banquet at the graduation ceremony at the black student center Makuu. In Johnson and Taylor counties, parents pay for the white proms.
Again the question reasserts itself: If it is perfectly acceptable for black, Asian and Hispanic students to have separate dorms and cultural centers in college, subsidized by tax dollars, why is it an outrage that white high-school kids in rural Georgia have their own prom, paid for by their own parents? Whatever did these white folks do to lose the right to equal respect and equal treatment?
So, do I get an "A" for the class, or what?
I used to watch him, but have stopped doing so since the prom incident.
I used to watch him all the time but haven't since he blew up at Ann Coulter and refused to allow her to make her point. He is full of himself now and if he doesn't see the importance of Freedom of Association which is in our Constitution then he is not worth listening to. It is not the "whites" who are the major "racists" in this country and he shuts his eyes to that fact.
"......They would also have to include a fair number of articles in Spanish."...say you. Did you mean Mexican?
Mexicans don't read or speak the Spanish spoken and written in Spain. However, by your reasoning, there should be a smattering of all Western and Eastern European languages to make America's propaganda pulp reflective of our diverse culture.
Because most Black Americans have no idea about where their ancestors were enslaved by Black Africans for sale to Europeans, there should be a representative sprinkling of tribal languages, and a slight hint of Ebonics written to round things off.
Only then will we have successfully revisited the Tower of Babel.
People segregate and "go out of one's way" based on social strata, language, cultuiral commonality, looks, sexual preference, etc -- ad infinitum -- don't they?
I don't see where, why or how "racially segregated" get-togethers are in any way different -- it precludes "mind-reading" the offenders in any case who themselves become suseptible to state-enforced 'laws of inclusion'...
Another problem is in PC society's turning a blind eye selectively when the tables are turned -- this inconsistancy is disturbingly elitist and hypocritical.
Someone has to be GROUPED in the first place in order to exclude certain persons. Social strata are not "grouped." They are an aggregate....as is language, looks, sexuality....etc.
An aggregate is a body of people with similar characteristics but no enduring ties. You gave many examples.
A group is a body with identifiable binding ties. A group would be "the workers at Ford Plant #23." The "Eagles" football team. If the eagles had a picnic for the whites only, they'd be going out of their way to exclude.
The NAACP has long ago changed. Years ago the KKK was, effectively a domestic terrorist group, today, they are nothing, but a name and a few guys in robes who could't walks and chew gum at the same time. Just as the NAACP was a proud organization, they have have become not just a racist group, but an exploitive one as well, using african americans to further not just a unique agenda, but to further the leaderships power and the line the pockets of civil rights "entrpeneurs".
The NAACP should be ashamed of itself, the way its mislead its own people, and become corrupt. They are a disgrace to every african american in this country that has ever fought against discrimination. There greed and quest for power and money will do more harm to african americans then the KKK could dream of doing today.
1st amendment, the right of people to peaceably to assemble.
Granted, you may not like racists have the rights of the constitution, but they do, now why this kids chose to "peacefully assemble" with only there own kind, is there business, but simply put, they chose to, they wanted to, I guess they thought they were actually african american and that this was okay.
So?
Where is your Masters from?
Since you asked it was from Suffolk University in Public Administration.
What I said was that it's dishonest to pretend it isn't segregationist and racist when it's designed specifically to separate the whites and blacks of an otherwise combined group.
One of the little details that kept slipping by, was that people could bring african americans, if they brought them as dates, they just weren't invited on there own.
Last but not least, these kids were basically idiots, who's biggest gripes about why they did this, don't hold to much water. However, and this is not a valid defense, but this is done across the country, the only difference, its usually tax payer supported and its done to exclude whites. I'm only glad that tax money didn't go to pay for this, and its tragic that these knuckleheads don't realize that any white kid coming from that school, from now and years on, will have "racist" label attached to them.
Buchanan is not a racist, he has good points and good point by point refution, we don't call blacks racist when they ask for there own dorms, we don't say anything when every ethnic group under the sun demands segregation, to be paid for with tax payer money, but we gripe when a bunch of white kids put there own money out and throw a private party that the people going to didn't even consider a real prom.
Every weekend there are all-black parties in black neighborhoods, all-Latino parties in Latino neighborhoods, and all-Asian parties in Asian neighborhoods. But God forbid us white people having an all-white party or we're labeled racists as a result.
O'Reilly doesn't understand the first thing about freedom of association.
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