“That Conversation about Race” category archive
What’s in a Name? 0
In the Idaho State Journal, Mike Murphy wades into a dispute over the “Redskins” name of a local high school team. After noting that a local Republican state representative defended the name because it “honors” Native Americans and because “tradition is important,” he responds
Follow the link for the full skewering.
Deseg 0
It was my junior year in high school when my school district decided that integration was inevitable. One I’m certain carefully picked black girl joined the senior class. The next year, when I was a senior, in a bold step, eleven I’m certain just as carefully picked black students joined the senior class. (Simultaneously, two seg academies sprang up and the prom was canceled).
I know of no incidents among the students, at least not at school, and, had there been any outside of school, I probably would have heard of them; it was a very small school (there were 70 in my graduating class). I do know that many of the older white teachers retired or moved to the seg academies rather than face the advent of “full integration,” in which, as in many Southern school districts, the former black high school became a junior high and the former white high school became a senior high, because school spirit or something.
I recall that one of the older lady teachers was mortified when, in a photo of the track team, the local paper switched my name with that of one of my black team mates. (I got the full story from my mother, who was a math teacher.) Me, I didn’t care–he and I got along just fine.
This is by way of commending to your attention an article in my local rag about the “Norfolk 17,” the first black students to attend a previously all-white high school in Norfolk, Virginia, and the reception they faced. Here’s a bit:
The springboard for the article was that four students won an award for their documentary about the Norfolk 17. As a footnote, one of the things that struck me was the names of the four student documentarians: Javier Miranda-Castro, Kaleem Haq, Jacob Hill, and Kobe Nguyen.
In the Zone 0
Update: Grammatical erorrs correxted.
At The Charlotte Observer, Mary Newsom reminds that “single family residence” zoning (as opposed to residential vs. industrial vs. commercial zoning”) has its origins in racism. A nugget:
Meanwhile, federal rules and redlining kept black families from getting mortgages, and housing developers couldn’t get financing without whites-only covenants in the deeds.
The Initiation 0
I’ve cited this quotation from Lyndon Johnson before, but it bears repeating, because we are watching it play out during every day of the Trumpling:
Image via Juanita Jean.
Provoking Discord 0
The SPLC examines how members of right-wing hate groups are attempting to cover their digital tracks on “social” media in the wake of the New Zealand shootings.
Dread Locks 0
Elizabeth Wellington, after noting that the winners of all three major U. S. beauty contests this year are black women, find herself dismayed that the continuing effort to disparage, discourage, and disrespect* black persons’ natural hair. A snippet.
The law, appropriately referred to as the C.R.O.W.N. law, an acronym for Create a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural hair, passed the California State Senate and is now on its way to the State Assembly. Mitchell introduced it, she said, because she was weary of seeing black children and teenagers — like Buena Vista wrestler Andrew Johnson, whose locks were sheared at the behest of match referee Alan Maloney — humiliated “because their natural hair was deemed unruly or a distraction to others.
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*I think that’s the first time I’ve used that neologism, either verbally written, but somehow it seems appropriate.
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
Florida Republicans float a new strategy for reviving the poll tax.
Theft of Labor: The True Southern Tradition 0
My local rag has a long article on sharecropping, including first-hand narratives from persons who grew up in sharecropping families.
Forget the Gone with the Wind propaganda.
Follow the link and learn just how gracious Southern living really was.