Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Brown vs. Board of "Tradition"

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

It is 2009 right? I mean, I still enjoy watching "Eyes On The Prize" and reading about the Marches, Protests, Sit-Ins, and leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. America wants to put their history behind them, especially the bad stuff. Even with the historic election of President Barack Obama, many parts of this country aren't so fast to open their front doors and let the "outsider" in. They will accept the fact that the must go to school together, if there's no affordable or viable private option. But they'll be dammed if their Son or Daughter mingle with "their kind".

Enter Montgomery County High School in Georgia. There, the kids go to school together, play sports together, even date each other, albeit in the shadows of their parents permission. But Prom Night, 2009, just like every other year since 1971 when the school integrated, the Black's and White's held their Prom's separate from each other. Why? "It's just the way it's always been". Why? It seems they have interracial couples at the school. Many "BFFs" are of different races. So why can't they have a Prom together? Schools are places of learning, most of it is outside the classroom walls. It's where you learn to share, solve conflicts, treat others as you want to be treated, how to make friends, how to overcome heartache. Home is where you can either have school reinforced, or un-learned. Home is where you are told, "Don't talk to THEM" "Don't go out with THEM" "Don't go to THAT part of town".

Tradition is what most racist and bigots hide behind when it's convenient. Ask them a question on camera, and they're happy to have an African American as President. They will readily offer up the fact that they have one or two Black people they consider as "Friends". Black folk will proudly boast of their integrated lives. But if their son or daughter wants to bring one of "them" home or, God forbid, have their arm around "them" in a formal photo. That's not what "good" boys and girls do.

The Parents of Montgomery County GA should be ashamed. Ashamed that their kids, in 2009, are still being anchored in the "Good Ole days". Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education mandated that Separate but Equal is not what it claims to be. Children must be educated in the same classrooms from the same teachers. If only that lesson could be taken home with them.

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