Black students ordered to give up seats to white children

[cali]

COUSHATTA -- Nine black children attending Red River Elementary School were directed last week to the back of the school bus by a white driver who designated the front seats for white children.

The situation has outraged relatives of the black children who have filed a complaint with school officials.


Superintendent Kay Easley will meet with the family members in her office this morning.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People also is considering filing a formal charge with the U.S. Department of Justice. NAACP District Vice President James Panell, of Shreveport, said he would apprise Justice attorneys of the situation this week. He's considering asking for an investigation into the bus incident and other aspects of the school system's operations, including pupil-teacher ratio as it relates to the numbers of white and black children, along with a breakdown of the numbers of black and white teachers employed.

http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060824/NEWS01/608240332/1002/NEWS

[saigon68]

1. Its just an old "southern" Tradition

[JNelson6563]

5. Yes, that's right

Only viewed as "racist" by the ignorant.

:sarcasm:

[Toots]

42. Heritage..isn't that their argument about the Confederate Flag..

It's just their Heritage, nothing to get worked up about. It don't mean they are prejudiced. :crazy:

[misternormal]

99. Not everyone that lives...

... in the South agrees with this racist, obviously red-neck, bigoted bullshit.

Please don't use such a wide brush, and lump all of us southerners together.

Thank you.

[4_TN_TITANS]

111. Very true...

This is outrageous and many of us in the South would be abhorred

[reprobate]

113. I'd agree, but living in Fla I really don't qualify as a Southerner.

[coalition_unwilling]

142. Excuse me? Florida was a slave state during the Civil War. (n/t)

[iamjoy]

147. Most Floridians Are Newcomers

At least, in the central and south part of the state.

Funny thing about my home state, the further north you go, the further South you get.

[1monster]

173. The northeastern part too. When I moved here in 32 years ago, the

population of the entire county was something like 15,000. There are near a million now. This county is the 17th fastest growing in the country. The county just to the south of us is the fourth fastest growing county in the country.

And almost all of those who move here are from the north...

[Yupster]

244. During the Civil War

Florida was the least populous of the Confederate states.

In the important election of 1860, only 13,000 votes were cast for president in Florida.

Few Floridians had ancestors in Florida back then.

[Anakin Skywalker]

238. Yeah! You are just a Cuban!

:)

[zreosumgame]

152. sadly we do that to EVERYONE

[Dob Bole]

135. 1/3 of the U.S. population lives in the South...

so be nice to us. Except for that guy, if this is true.

[zreosumgame]

155. and his friends

[Tunkamerica]

260. its a woman

...not a man, and according to one of the posters who says she knows the driver, it had less to do with race as it did with new children added to the bus, who were all black, being told not to sit in the asssigned seats of kids who had already been riding the bus for a few days. I think this was blown out of proportion and the fact-checking wasn't done before making it a national news story.

[lildreamer316]

243. Do you know me?

Don't judge me. I am a native southerner. I would NEVER do that. I get really tired of having to defend the south over and over again here.

Should I reply with the old "Northerners think they are better than everyone else?" Which is also bull.

DROP this attitude. It gets us nowhere. Not constructive at all.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

2. A ** supporter, no doubt.

Idiots.

[Omaha Steve]

3. The driver should be...

Charged with civil rights violations, and then jailed for a long time.

[cali]

4. I don't think jailing

the driver for a "long time" is the answer, but I certainly agree that he should be charged with civil rights violations. In addition, the parents, I would imagine, have a decent action against the driver, the bus company and perhaps the school district.

[Joe Chi Minh]

19. O, I think jailing him for a "long time" is the answer.

Not only does it send out an unequivocal message (evidently necessary), but it punishes the low-life's fathomless evil. That's better than decent. The bus company and school district could be prosecuted, in addition.

[William769]

26. A long term jail sentence would be just the ticket.

Especially since I had to read shit like this before I had my first cup of coffee.

[sui generis]

72. could not disagree more, jailing is STUPID

First you have to establish who that policy originated with, then address all of the involved parties.

If it was the individual, then deal with the individual's social deficit and get them to do some kind of CONSTRUCTIVE community service. Racism is ignorance, and wild-ass punishments are just as ignorant as racism, when the cure for ignorance is education.

Save jail for violent crime.

[anotherdrew]

105. put a mark in this drivers permenant record "may weild no authority, ever"

sad little piece of shit of a man, this isn't about his ignorace (although he's got plenty of that), it's about his desire to control others and use that power over others. Odds are this driver is another psycopath waiting to kill, a ticking time bomb.

[tblue37]

253. A woman--I am sure the driver is a woman. (eom)

[VP505]

140. I agree

that ass hat needs a civil suit, one with some heavy, heavy punitive damages, hit his wallet hard.

[zreosumgame]

169. it does not matter where that 'policy' came from

'just following orders' is no defense or excuse for this kind of crap.

[sui generis]

184. WELL.

Let me put playing Rosa Parks games on the same scale as dragging deaths in Jasper, Texas.

It's not.

Those guys go to jail and hopefully execution - they've committed a crime.

But "just following orders" was not my point at all. If you're in Deliverance, Tennessee driving a schoolbus, you've probably been raised to believe you live apart from the reality of glossy magazines, "hollywoood" TV, and that people in those places don't understand the things that you do either. Bigotry is passed down as naturally as genes at tables where the "N" word is used casually and in early education where students already don't mix because their parents wouldn't like it.

The bus driver? That's a symptom, not a crime. If you really care about this not happening again, then there as to be a push to change WHY it happened. Putting people in jail for cultural ignorance and the habits of generations does not fix anything. In fact, it puts one more person out of work, and keeps them from ever getting work again, in reality. The "restitution" should be something that's not punitive so much as rehabilitative. Why did the bus driver say that? I'll tell you what, if I were the judge I'd issue a sentence, followed by an "in lieu of" option, say, required sensitivity training kind of like we option driver safety for moving violations.

Beyond that I'd add some basic awareness raising community service to HEAL rather than flame.

This kind of crap is reality, and not just in the south. People have a perfectly honorable right to be a racist if they want to - just as you and I have the right not to approve of that choice, but they do not have a right to act on those feelings, and most especially where children are involved.

[Joe Chi Minh]

205. If she is simply a hapless victim of her cultural background, how

come this story is news? Wake up to yourself.

What are you talking about with your a perfectly honourable right to be racist! You could reasonably argue that it's natural, in the sense of pertaining to our lower, unregenerate nature, as are a host of other dishonorable acts and attitudes. Fornication is natural. Doesn't mean it's honorable.

[sui generis]

211. please can the attitude

Your outrage is a little thin.

I was speaking subjectively. It is perfectly honorable to make your own choices in a free society. It is not honorable to act on those when they impact someone else's rights.

Other than that, those choices are those peoples' business and your judgement has no bearing on their reality. I personally don't like those choices, and I don't find them honorable myself, but until my kids are being sent to the back of the bus I don't care what they think.

What I care about is WHY they're being sent there, and why that person thinks it's acceptable to act on their personal rationale about skin color being an indicator of superiority.

And, lofty words aside, fucking and fornication, between consenting adults, is honorable and nobody's business if they aren't one of those adults.

You would have us believe she is innately evil, cannot be rehabilitated and must be turned into an example of fear through extreme punishment. That's not very enlightened, and not much better than the blunt ugliness of racism itself. Racism implies some innate level of superiority based on skin color. This bigotry implies some innate level of superiority based on a prejudgement that she is incorrigible and it's genetic, not cultural.

Finally, I don't believe in "lower natures". Those are victorian ideas. Please understand I'm not trying to dress you down or be mean; just explaining myself and my views. I am multi-cultural; and I know how stupid otherwise good people can be, just out of habit. I also know that sometimes it just takes bringing something to light in a constructive way to have a productive outcome, and the lesson isn't just for the bus driver alone.

[Joe Chi Minh]

214. No, they're not "Victorian ideas". They are Christian precepts.

".... but until my kids are being sent to the back of the bus I don't care what they think", says it all. I'm all right, Jack... And right in the middle of an unctuous, querulous self-righteous post. You're priceless.

[Zhade]

264. Not all of us live by "Christian precepts", and no one will make us.

Feel free to disparage our choices, guilt-free as they are for us - your opinion is worth as much as we paid for it.

And I'm pretty sure SG's point was that we don't punish people for their beliefs or thoughts, but their actions if they infringe on others.

If you believe people *should* be punished for their thoughts, you're not liberal, period, and are invited to go away.

[sui generis]

275. I'll take that as a compliment

thanks!

The difference between traditional bigotry in the U.S. and traditional bigotry in Europe IS the difference between despising someone for their skin color versus despising someone for an idea, such as being a transubstantialist versus a consubstantialist. It's nice to see you carry on that charming tradition, but we all grow and change so there's hope even for you.

[Zhade]

261. Fantastic post. Thanks for your humanity!

NT!

[rodeodance]

185. too many people in jail Hit em in the wallet HARD

[Joe Chi Minh]

206. Some deserve it more than others, though. What's wrong with a

double whammy!

[Joe Chi Minh]

201. What rubbish. Do you think Dr Mengele was uneducated? Or

perhaps you think that kind of expression of racism isn't violent crime.

Our societies are riven with enormous structural violence, which democrats worthy of the name seek to redress, not only for their own sakes, either. When the economic depression hits, you may escape its worst effects, many won't be able to.

a) expessions of racism are a crime, and
b) expressions of racism are extremely violent, and are part of a mindset that lends itself readily to extreme physical violence against the innocent.

[sui generis]

276. I'm going to enjoy this immensely

No, violent crime is violent crime. This is "violence" in a literary sense only.

1. "Thought crimes" can't be regulated, unlike real crime.
2. the "violence" of thought crimes is in the mind of the beholder
3. nothing is a crime except what breaks a law, and a law must be written, chartered, recorded, etc.
4. if the crime is to do something that fosters unequal treatment based on race, then the evidence has to point to her intent to be racist and not just to separate noisy kids on a bus.

As an example, it is not illegal for someone to stand on a street corner and tell you they are a pederast and fantasize about sex with children. Furthermore, society has no legal remedy against that person whatsoever. Also, that statement is subject to a great deal of questioning about WHY someone would say such a thing rather than to merely take it on its literal face.

But if such a person were found in the possession of child pornography, it would be a REAL crime, with concrete evidence that they were serious in making that statement.

I think you may believe I'm being evil or contrarian, but actually if you want the strongest possible foundation for a rationale you have to eliminate cross defining "violence" and limit your appeals to irrational emotion. I'll ignore the Mengele remark, and even go so far as to say you likely only have a passing layman familiarity with Mengele or you wouldn't have said such a silly thing.

Your statements seem to be very normative. There is a world we think "should be" and the world that is. This should not have happened to those kids if it was indeed an exercise racism. But even so that person was not born a "racist" and may likely never condone any form of violence based on skin color. There are insensitive people all over this planet who could use a little sensitivity training. There are also assholes all over this planet itching to burn someone at the stake on the slightest pretext. I suspect that she probably had other reasons for moving the kids around that had very little to do with skin color, however it turned out.

This goes beyond Occam's razor to differential diagnosis. In this day and age no bus driver in the world would think they could do that purely for racist reasons and get away with it - so I think we're hearing an emotional retelling of the tale. Whatever the reason, the damage is done, and the perception of impropriety is often as damaging as impropriety itself.

Until we start honestly seeing "what is" we can't change this place into "what it should be".

[oblivious]

280. I appreciate your comments immensely.

[zreosumgame]

289. you are being so sly sg

you couch your justufications of racism in such pretty terms.

In fact this was NOT a 'thought crime' this was also violent in the regard that this bus driver ABUSED and DEGRADED selected students on the basis of skin color. This does have a negative effect on people. Simply because you never have been subjected to such violent attitudes (and yes the attitude can be regulated as son as it has a physical or emotional effect) and the real possibility of reprisal from the driver in either physical form or in false reports by this bigot to the school, garnering punishment for these children.

So all in all, for you efforts to try to convince other people that humiliation and abusive tactics from violent minded people is 'normal', a big kiss my ass!

[Joe Chi Minh]

290. What a load of specious twaddle! If you're going to enjoy this, it's

because you're too dumb to see you've undercut any possible credibility you might (the operative word, I fear) have had, by blithely stating that as long as they weren't your children, you didn't care!!!!!

You have the gall to choose a latin username when you don't even understand English. If you did, you surely wouldn't have written your wee confession of indifference to the humiliation and suffering of those little children.... simply because they were not your children! They sure had a lucky escape by the sound of it. You're no Democrat, if that's your attitude. What are you doing on this board. Do you have no kind of idealism beyond the narrowest welfare of your own family?

And to top it all, you claimed that all they needed was to be educated (like the good Dr Mengele .. and you seem to fancy you're educated!!!! Wow. I hope they (and society at large are spared your kind of education). No wonder you don't want to take up this issue of education and Mengele.

That twaddle about pederasty and "thought police" was even more cretinous. It was nothing to do with the wretched bus driver's thoughts. It was her actions - which you grotesquely seek to excuse as having a basis other than racist.

I hope you enjoy answering this, boy. It will mean you're very bit as dense as I've pointed out.

[Joe Chi Minh]

291. Incidentally, instead of rambling on about thought police and

pederasts on street corners fantasising about child porn!, if there is a distinction to be drawn, it is between formal crime, as per the applicable laws, and informal crime. The formality of a crime is the least significant part of it to all but the most self-serving lawyers. There is a morality, an ethical dimension not by any means covered by the man-made laws applicable in a place, which are no less criminal for that.

A callous lack of feeling for the suffering of young children, unmitigated malice, can evidently be manifested in a variety of ways, but I wouldn't have compared your "thoughts", however callous to those of a pederast. If that's the impression I gave, I'm sorry. I was simply pointing out the vacuity of your equation of education with sensitizing people to morality. It may occur, provided such education is based on sound morality (which is evidently not the case with you, I have to say), but it certainly cannot be taken for granted, particularly in cases of extreme malice, as here. The world is peopled by children of darkness as well as children of light. But then, Christ's teachings haven't favorably impressed you, have they? You look to "education" for your moral enlightenment.

Now before you have a ball responding, think of the implications of what you are saying. We wouldn't want a repeat of, "Well, if they're not my children..., would we? Words have meanings, remember, and English is presumably your first language, so it's important not to make too much of a fool of yourself. Latin terms can only give an impression of erudition in the mouth of someone who has mastered his own language.

[Tight_rope]

86. It's NOT AS HIM...It's a "HER"---> "BUS DRIVER"

And yes...she should be jailed for a long time.

[Joe Chi Minh]

200. For various reasons women tend to be more tribal than men by

nature. A kind of extension of the family, I suppose.

Of course, only unregenerate members of either sex give in to such primitive tribal instincts.

Christ could not have pronounced more emphatically on the matter, when he asked, "Who is my mother? Who are my brothers, sisters, etc? He who does the will of my Father in Heaven is my mother my brother, mys sister...". (not verbatim)

With these words, he taught us to view the whole of mankind as our family, at least until further notice. And he will be the judge, then, of who are the sheep and who are the goats. Rest assured it will not be on the basis on the colour of our skin or our nationality.


Racism always affects infants in all their innocence, just as much as their parents; yet now and again, an individual makes it clear that he/she is fully aware of it and even rejoices in it. I could see that woman as an Irma Gris type, with a savage Alsatian ready to be unleashed on those children. Still, "red in toth and claw" though the dog might be, it could not begin to convey the abyss of that creature's malice.

[DirtyJersey]

130. Bus driver only

I don't think they bus company and/or school district should be implicated unless they tried to cover it up or endorsed such a policy. Chances are it was one bus driver being a dick, and if they fire him upon learning of this, then I think they should be left alone.

[Joe Chi Minh]

190. Agreed.

[The Wizard]

165. And lock him up with African-American

prisoners so he's left with a taste of bigotry he'll never forget. Holy BeJeebus, did I say that?

[Not Me]

28. Fine his employer a couple hundred thousand dollars

and the problem will go away.

[TommyO]

75. I think jailing her would be better

Since the driver's name is Delores Davis, per the linked article, I strongly suspect it's a woman.

[coalition_unwilling]

143. What would be the criminal charge? Racism is ignorance, but

the last time I checked it wasn't a crime. Maybe it should be, but that's a subject for another post.

[Stand and Fight]

148. Did you read the article?

The driver's name is DELORES DAVIS. The bus driver is a woman, not a man...

[tblue37]

252. I believe the driver is a woman. (eom)

[midnight]

56. Your response is one that makes sense given the fact that

the situation happened the way it is being discussed. In the world that has been created since the rep. congress and rep. pres. have been running our country with no sense, I guess this driver can most likely get away with it.

[geiger]

100. He should be jailed.

[Stand and Fight]

149. The driver's name is DELORES DAVIS. It's a woman, not a man...

[GoddessOfGuinness]

266. His new job (at less than minimum wage) should be

to work for those kids...cleaning their rooms up, fetching their slippers, chauffeuring them to school and back.

[ellisonz]

270. Jail is a good plan.

"And the nine children had to share only two seats, meaning the older children had to hold the younger ones in their laps."

If she even put the key in the ignition much less drove the bus it's at least nine counts of endangering the welfare of a child. I don't know what the punishment in Louisiana is for that but it's definitely criminal.

[lostnotforgotten]

6. So Is Racism Really Dead In The South?

I ask only because so many seem to assume this to be the case.

My personal experience seems to suggest otherwise.

[Totally Committed]

13. Sadly, it's not dead anywhere in the United States...

It's just more obvious in a case like this.

We are still one of the most racist societies on the face of the earth. I would love to say I lived to see the day when that wasn't so, but I don't think I will.

TC

[cali]

14. Please provide

some evidence to back up your claim that the U.S. is one of the racist societies on the face of the earth, or at least name all those wonderful societies, and according to you there are hundreds of them, that are less racist than the U.S.

[William769]

30. Just take off your rose colored glasses.

[cali]

50. It has nothing to do with rose colored glasses

it has to do with facts. Please name at least some of those hundreds of societies that are less racist than the U.S.

[Totally Committed]

106. Google Racism and Katrina...

It'll blow you away.

I take it you gre up in a white, middle-class suburb. Otherwise, you could never say we are not one of the most racist societies on earth.

TC

[cali]

107. Look,

I'm not denying that there is racism in this country. I just posted this, and I'm aware of the racism and classism that Katrina laid bare. I'm simply suggesting that bad as the U.S. is, there are more countries where it's even worse. Also, this country has made progress, and while it's true that under bush, we've gone backwards, we're still a long way from the 1960s.

[0007]

37. .......one of MOST racist societies on the face of the eath.

I agree.

[auburngrad82]

40. As a white guy who grew up in the South during the 70s it's worse now

From my experiences, the racism in America, not just the South but the whole country, is worse than when I was growing up in GA during the 70s. The reason, I believe, is it's more subtle in most cases.

[RebelOne]

59. As a white woman who grew up in Miami in the '50s,

I can definitely say it was a whole lot worse then. I remember segregated bathrooms, drinking fountains, blacks having to sit in the back of the buses, not being allowed into white restaurants, and segregated schools. When I attended school, there were no blacks. I also remember riding the bus one day and a black man got on the bus and sat in the front and the bus driver would not move the bus until he went to the back. You can't say that it is worse now.

[wryter2000]

63. I think he's comparing the 70's, not the 50's

Things changed fairly dramatically in the meantime.

IMHO, we've been back-sliding badly since Reagan. Nixon's Southern strategy didn't help matters, but it took that grinning idiot to put a nice face on it. Remember Bittburg?

[RebelOne]

64. Yeah, but the '70s were a hell of a lot better for blacks than the '50s.

[Tight_rope]

87. Unless you are Black...don't speak of the race!

It's been said time and time again. You can never know what it's like to be black unless you are black. So please keep your assumptions to yourself.

[auburngrad82]

89. That's true. And the 70s were better for minorites than present day.

There seems to have been a widespread effort by the GOP and their followers to roll back minority rights to the '50s. Hell, many conservatives think the '50s was the Golden Era as far as America is concerned.

So all the voter roll purges targeting African American voters, the current atmosphere in which anyone with brown skin and an accent is a suspected terrorist, police roadblocks on election day in African American neighborhoods, broken voting machines or not enough voting machines in African American districts, etc etc are just ways to ensure that White (mostly male) America keeps control of things.

Now add the attempts to ban gay marriage and on a smaller scale, same-sex benefits. They've become emboldened because no one has stood up to them. They are working towards returning the US to the '50s, a time when minorities were a subservient class and where gays stayed in the closet and white men ruled the world.



Liberal bumper stickers

[Viva_La_Revolution]

76. as a white girl with black friends, it's worse now than I've ever seen

I'm only 37, but I have never seen so many blatent actions or rude remarks as I have in the past few years.

http://www.cartoonistgroup.com/store/add.php?iid=10805
reminds me of this cartoon.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

117. That's odd, because in my world

it is better than it ever has been and most of my colleagues are black. Guess it depends where you are. But, then, I'm pushing 60 and remember segregation.

[Totally Committed]

125. I have grandchildren who are half African-American, and some who are

half Indonesian-American, and I can tell you that even today they know what racism is. I thought their generation would be the first to be racism-free (I was so naive back in the 60's!). I only wish that were so.

TC

[TallahasseeGrannie]

128. I, too, have black relatives

[Name removed]

69. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[shanti]

83. please!

he speaks the truth! without a doubt, the u.s. is still one of the most racist countries in the world. you are white, aren't you? then you are the recipient of white privelege. period.

[stepnw1f]

97. I Agree with This and I'm White

If I weren't I would most likely have a different life. No question about that.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

118. I look at it differently

I look around and see some interesting things. I see a whole lot of white folks with bad teeth, mullets, genetic challenges.... and then I see gracious, well-mannered, well dressed, obviously well-educated people of color. There is NO white privilege in that situation. No way. No how. Not here.

[loyalsister]

137. I don't benefit from white priviledge

as much as my peers, but I still hear the subtle distinction of how I am percieved as superior to people of color.
When a kid learns how to drive, there are tremendous differences in the kinds of things parents teach their kids, and it's all about white priviledge.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

154. Maybe it is because I live in a college town

but there are so many people of color around here who run rings around me educationally and financially. They have bigger houses, drive nicer cars, and titles like "Mayor" "Commissioner" and "Doctor."

If I could find some white privilege I'd grab it and maybe put a PhD by my name, but I'm way outclassed.

[athena]

236. Employers and the justice sytem still discriminate against black people.

I used to think more or less like you. Whenever someone made racist generalizations about black people, I would point out all the black success stories I knew of. But it doesn't make the situation better when we whites pretend that discrimination doesn't exist or that we don't have an unfair advantage. I'm in physics, and only 2% of physicists are black. Do I have an unfair advantage because I'm white? You bet.

Take a look at the following.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=2784

Why are African-Americans twice as likely to be unemployed as whites? Why is the poverty rate for blacks more than twice the rate for whites? Why do nearly one out of every two blacks earn less than $25,000 while only one in three whites makes that little? Why is median black household income ($27,000) less than two thirds of median white household income ($42,000)? Why is Black families’ median household net worth is less than 10 percent that of white? Why are blacks much less likely to own their own homes than whites? Why do African-Americans make up roughly half of the United States’ massive population of prisoners (2 million) and why are one in three young black male adults in prison or on parole or otherwise under the supervision of the American criminal justice system? Why do African-Americans continue in severe geographic separation from mainstream society, still largely cordoned off into the nation’s most disadvantaged communities thirty years after the passage of civil rights fair housing legislation? Why do blacks suffer disproportionately from irregularities in the American electoral process, from problems with voter registration to the functioning of voting machinery? Why does black America effectively constitute a Third World enclave of sub-citizens within the world’s richest and most powerful state?

...

In a field experiment whose results were released last week, researchers Marianne Bertrand of the University of Chicago and Sendhill Mullainathan of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology sent out 5,000 resumes in response to help-wanted ads in Boston and Chicago newspapers. Each resume was randomly assigned either a very black-sounding name (such as “Lakisha Washington” or “Jamal Jones”) or a very white-sounding name (such as “Emily Walsh” or “Brendan Baker”). This racial “manipulation,” the researchers found, “produced a significant gap in the rate of callbacks for interviews.” White names received roughly 50 percent more callbacks than black names. For white applicants, moreover, sending higher quality resumes increased the number of callbacks by 30 percent. For black names, higher-quality resumes elicited no significant callback premium.

Just “get on with it?” Tell it to black families trying to buy a home or rent an apartment in the Denver area. According to a report released last month by the U.S. Department of Housing, nearly 1 in 5 blacks trying to buy a home or rent an apartment there faces some kind of technically illegal discrimination, being diverted from white majority areas to communities predominantly populated by minorities. This was actually below with the national average (21.6 percent for blacks), determined through hundreds of matched-pair testing exercises conducted across the country.

Tell it to the roughly astounding one in three black men in the US now carry the lifelong mark of a felony criminal record thanks to the nation’s 30 -year binge of incredibly racially disparate surveillance, arrest and mass imprisonment (“corrections” indeed!) conducted under the auspices of the drug war. They generally experience no real wage increases in their twenties and thirties, when American men without felony records typically experience rapid earnings growth. In a recent academic study conducted by Northwestern University sociologist Devah Pager in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the possession of a prison record reduced the likelihood of white testers being called back by a prospective employer by a ratio of 2 to 1. Among black testers, the mark of a prison record reduced that likelihood by nearly 3 to 1.

http://www.alternet.org/story/35398/

Black men with no criminal records (are) no more likely to find work than white men with criminal records. That's true despite the fact that New York has some of the nation's toughest laws against job discrimination.

Dumping the blame for the chronic job crisis of young, poor black men on illegal immigration stokes the hysteria of immigration reform opponents, but it also lets employers off the hook for discrimination. And it's easy to see how that could happen. The mountain of federal and state anti discrimination laws, affirmative action programs, and successful employment discrimination lawsuits gives the public impression that job discrimination is a relic of a shameful, and bigoted racial past.

But that isn't the case, and Pager's study is hardly isolated proof of that. Countless research studies, the Urban League's annual State of Black America report, a 2005 Human Rights Watch report, and the numerous EEOC practice discrimination complaints over the past decade reveal that employers have devised endless dodges to evade anti-discrimination laws. That includes rejecting applicants by their names, areas of the city they live in, and claims of mistaken advertising (that the jobs advertised were filled).

And this:

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=5842

Racism exists at every level in the criminal justice system: arrest, arraignment, indictment, trial, conviction, and sentencing. Despite being 14% of illegal drug users, blacks are 35% of those arrested for possession. There is a massive sentencing disparity between crack cocaine (a "black" drug) and power cocaine (a "white" drug). In a New Jersey poll, 26% of judges said prosecutors were more likely to insist on more serious charges against minority defendants than whites and 20% said sentences for minorities were more severe. Even at equal "brutality," murderers are 4 times more likely to get the death penalty if the victim is white. For black males, a criminal record makes it nearly impossible to get a job, as if it wasn't hard enough already. One recent study showed that whites with a criminal record were more likely to be called back by employers than blacks with no criminal history. Blacks with a criminal record were only called back 5% of the time.

As well as:
http://www.jobbankusa.com/News/Hiring/hiring100803a.html
http://www.blackcommentator.com/40/40_cover.html

[Kelvin Mace]

91. I don't know that I would go that far

but racism is alive and well in America, certainly in the South. I see examples all the time, and have seen it for years.

[Sequoia]

92. Here's a start:

http://tolerance.org/maps/hate/index.html


I grew up in the south and there were signs that said: WHITE'S ONLY.
and billboards that read certain types of people were unweclome after sundown. You have only to look at what happend on the Gulf Coast last year to see those covert thoughts are alive and well in the USA. That is LIVING PROOF.

[cali]

108. Holy shit

What is wrong with all the people responding to my comment- including you. I didn't deny that there's racism in this country- I posted the OP, for crying out loud, and Katrina should have been revelatory to everyone in this country about how pervasive racism is. But I responded to someone who made the claim that the U.S. is one of the most racist countries on the face of the earth. Anyone with a modicum of knowledge knows that's simply not true.

[Totally Committed]

110. As the person you challenged, I disagree with you. Period.

Let's agree to disagree, because you won't budge me. I know what I've experienced, as I grew up in the 50's in an inner-city housing project, as a witnessed in the 60's in the South registering Blacks to vote, and as I lived when two of my kids married outside their race. I know what my grandchildren have had to endure, along with their parents.

You obviously have no idea what's happened here and continues to happen here in this country every day. I won't argue with you. You seem pretty invested in denying it, so deny it. Respectfully, you're wrong.

We must agree to disagree.

TC

[cali]

114. Perhaps I'm wrong

but you seem either blissfully unaware of racism in other countries- many in Europe, or rather uneducated about the rest of the world.

[Totally Committed]

124. Nope... I've travelled a lot.....

I maintain it is as bad here as nearly anywhere else. (And, I'm not "blissfully unaware" of enough things these days, frankly.)

You can disagree with me without insinuating I am either stupid or provincial.

I offered to agree to disagree, but you seem like you need to "win", so okay, you win. The US is only one of the most racist countries on earth near me. Feel better?

TC

[skooooo]

285. Want to see racism?

Go to Russia. OMG they HATE black people and will tell them right to their faces.

[Ms. Clio]

129. Yes, it is "ONE of the most racist" --- why on earth would you deny that?

Anybody with a modicum of knowledge simply knows that to be the truth.

On edit: Perhaps you can link to pictures of all the lynchings in say, Canada or England or Holland in the past 100 years?

[Lost-in-FL]

203. Canada isn't free of racist sins

specially against their natives. I am not talking centures ago but in the last 15 years.

The first thing I saw when I visit my in-laws in Canada was a "N____s go home" and a swastica right by it. It was a few blocks from their house. I looked around their neighborhood, and it seemed they are the only coloured people there.

[Ms. Clio]

204. Sure, I agree, but historically speaking, in terms of violence

there is simply no comparison.

[Totally Committed]

93. I grew up in an inner-city housing project for the poor in the '50's...

My family was one of the few white families there, and I can tell you that the treatment I saw of African-Americans, Hispanics, and other people of color there made me a civil rights proponent for the rest of my life.

In the 60's my family was able to move out of there to a house in the suburbs, but I never forgot what I saw then, and how things still hadn't changed when I saw what happened in the horrendous aftermath of Katrina. Anyone who watched that and thought they weren't seeing racism, pure-and-simple, played out in front of their eyes was deluding themselves.

Would you have been happier if I said the US was AMONG the most racist societies on earth? Whatever floats your boat. I have no links to give, no articles or blogs to cite, only my sincere belief in the things I've seen, and the experiences I've had.


TC

[coalition_unwilling]

145. Sweden, Cuba, Denmark , France, Germany, to name a few

[Recursion]

158. Hold on... is that a joke?

You're listing France, Denmark, and Germany as positive examples of race relations we should emulate?

Are you sadistic, are you joking, or have you just never been to any of those places?

[coalition_unwilling]

278. Lived in France for 3 years, Germany for 1 year. Each has its

own issues with race, but nothing compared to U.S. either historically (except Germany from '33-'45) or right now.

[Judi Lynn]

22. Not that many countries have slavery, lynchings, segregated classrooms,

housing, etc., etc., etc. as close in time to the picture we're dealing with here.

I was in Birmingham, Alabama with a distant relative in the 1960's, actually rode the bus downtown, and was horrified to see something I had only read about: African American citizens getting on the bus and walking to the crowded BACK of the bus, past the sparsely occupied front 2/3rds, which was reserved for "whites."

Inside the store, this relative threw a fit when a black child approached her child's stroller and touched one of her toys. She hissed to me loudly, "I'll have to boil that thing when I get home," as she slammed it into a bag, as if it had been poisoned.

Later that day, she and her husband impressed me (not favorably) by driving past the home of activist Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, friend of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and staring at it with hatred.

The very idea my own relative had married this piece of filth, and had gone wacko himself (or maybe he had always been an asshole) was almost more than I could live with. I despise people like that, I know there are more like them, and it's more than I can take.

You're right, it's not dead, it's hideous, and we have all those photos of lynchings, we have grotesque events like the burning of the black community in Oklahoma City not that long ago, not to mention the burning of a black neighborhood earlier in Florida, assorted planned and random evil crimes, going all the way up to NOW, including the dragging death of Mr. Byrd in Texas a couple of years ago by Klansman, which is probably one of the most vicious crimes I've ever considered.

[Recursion]

53. Really?

I think pretty much all of them did, and quite a few still do. It was more pronounced here in the US because this was one of the very few countries that had large minority populations. Frankly I would say we did a bit better than the world average on the issue.

[Ms. Clio]

146. really? How many lynchings occurred in England in the past 200 years?

please link to a source about the last black man burned to death for raping a white woman in France. I'd say we are far far worse than the world average on the issue.

"More pronounced" what a ludicrous understatement.

[Recursion]

153. Are you joking?

I mean, really, are you kidding?

You want examples of racial violence in England and France?

This is a joke, right?

Well, since you asked for it (all these are from 2000 or later)--
England:
http://www.wsws.org/sections/category/news/eu-brrac.shtml
http://www.irr.org.uk/2002/november/ak000005.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1428424.stm
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/07/023238
http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0724-08.htm
http://www.hrw.org/reports/1996/WR96/Helsinki-07.htm (starts out about the Czech Republic; England is down the page)
http://www.carf.demon.co.uk/feat38.html
http://www.searchlightmagazine.com/index.php?link=template&story=51
http://www.irr.org.uk/violence/

France:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_civil_unrest_in_France
http://digitalcommons.fau.edu/wilkes_theses/6/
http://fistfulofeuros.net/archives/000763.php
http://web.amnesty.org/report2005/fra-summary-eng
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/flames-of-racial-violence-sear-paris-streets/2005/11/04/1130823405025.html

That's just the first page of google for the two countries; it goes on and on. I think the US is doing pretty well by those standards.

[Ms. Clio]

160. are you joking? Because you don't appear to understand what a lynching is

Where in that list of only tangentially-related sources is a picture of a mass mob of thousands of white Europeans burning to death a black man for raping a white woman?

If you were to add in to the definition the kinds of small terrorist incidents you linked to, the numbers in the U.S. would be simply astronomical.

[Recursion]

161. Well, for starters...

... you can check the second link for the guy beaten to death by a mob.

You can also look at the two kids who got electricuted that started the whole French unpleasantness last year.

[Ms. Clio]

163. And a black police officer was attacked with a baseball bat by 3 white

white men Tuesday. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1974180

Your attempts to whitewash (literally) U.S. history are just astonshing.

[Recursion]

167. I think you're the one whitewashing

By pretending that Europe is not currently experiencing a crisis of racism and racial violence.

[Ms. Clio]

171. I notice you conveniently overlook the proof that racial violence is still

very much alive and well in the United States.

Your red herring about Europe is simply irrelevant.

[Recursion]

174. Never at any point in this thread did I say it's not happening here

I agreed with Cali that there are many countries where it is worse.

Now, please take down the strawman and put it somewhere else.

[Ms. Clio]

177. And I called bullshit on that, and will continue to do so

since you have no evidence to support that position.

Again, I could also find links to dozens of incidents of racial violence in this country -- against Latinos, Asians, etc. Any notion that the U.S. is "better" in any respect is simply ludicrous.

[Lost-in-FL]

207. There's no cases of racism in Europe

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/soccer/worldcup/2006-06-01-intolerance-cup_x.htm

:sarcasm:


Defender Oguchi Onyewu (oh-GOOCH-ee own-YAY-woo), an African-American who plays for the Belgian club Standard Lige, is expected to be one of the USA's breakout stars in this World Cup. At 6-4, 210 pounds, he's also the biggest player on the U.S. team, which begins play June 12 against the Czech Republic. But recently, Onyewu's size hasn't deterred rival club fans from launching racist attacks on him.

"I've been harassed while in a car, punched in face, heard monkey chants," Onyewu says matter-of-factly. Onyewu has played in France and Belgium the last four years but says this is the first season he has experienced such overt racism.

Onyewu, who is from Olney, Md., says in March he was leaving a rival team's game with a few friends when he was spotted by some fans of Club Brugge, a league opponent.

"They were shaking the car, they spit on the car, they were throwing food, kicking the car, punching the car, all that stuff," says Onyewu, who believes the incident was racially motivated. Part of the bumper of his Chrysler 300 was ripped off, he says. "I was too angry to be scared. My friends wouldn't let me get out of the car because they thought the fans would hurt me."

Onyewu says when his team played in April at a rival's stadium where fans sit near the field, he was punched in the face — during the game. "I was going to throw the ball in, and some fans started doing monkey chants and I made a gesture like, 'Whatever.' And a guy reached over and punched me in the mouth." Onyewu says the fan was suspended and fined.

________

I don't know, but where I live they call this racism.

[Ms. Clio]

208. and so what??? What does that have to do with racism in the U.S.?

it's a red herring.

[Recursion]

209. It's not a red herring when the whole subthread was about comparing the US

to other countries.

I think you somehow got the idea that people have been saying there's no racism in the US. The issue we were talking about was whether or not the US is the most racist society in the world. When that's the question, comparisons to other countries are quite relevant.

[Ms. Clio]

212. no, the original statement was "ONE of the most racist"

not "the most racist."

And again, historically speaking, there has not been, until very recently, anything in European history of the past 200 years to match the legacy of racial violence in the U.S. (Note that I said "racial" and not "religious" or "ethnic" etc.)

[Lost-in-FL]

210. Have you gone to an sports arena lately? Here in the US

Have you seen people chanting racists remarks to black football players?

What I am trying to say is that racism against blacks is wide spread. And who came up with the idea of using blacks for hard labor centuries ago? I'll give you a hint... not white americans.

[Ms. Clio]

213. Just Tuesday a black man was beaten in the head by 3 white men

who prefaced the attack with racial slurs.

And I have no idea what you mean by your last remark -- who did come up with it? Who cares? Who came up with the notion of burning black men to death for allegedly raping white women? (hint: it wasn't white Europeans).

[Lost-in-FL]

224. During a football game?

I heard of several murders of Africans in Germany while serving overseas. One of them was an known African professor who was "linched" at a train station by 3 white supremacists because he married a blonde-blue eye pure German national (as they confessed without showing no remorse). I am NOT trying to play down this murder (the one on Tuesday). But just giving you an example that it happens in other countries and IT IS STILL BAD, DISGUSTING and SHAMEFUL!!

You are right, overseas might not seem as violent as the US. I think racism overseas is more evident to me throught my own experience. I do not think they have much experience dealing with other cultures as here in the USA. I think they are just "tolerant" just for doing the right thing (afraid of what others would say) but not out of kindness. I used to be watched closely when I went to stores, was given excuses (in SEVERAL restaurants) that they messed up my order and would be an hour before I would be served. Going to Clubs I was told they had a "Private Party" but it was not true. I have NEVER been treated that way here in the US. And I am talking here about something that happened only six years ago.

I am not trying to draw a nice picture of racism in the US. I am a minority who lived overseas and who's partner (African-Haitian-American) who also lived for years in Canada. We both lived racism from a different perspective. How many professionals or well put celebrities who are African or Black do you know that aren't American? Do you really think a black person would have better opportunities in Europe? In Canada? Sorry, but for from my own experience I don't see that happening. Or maybe it would be a LOT harder than here in the USA.

[Ms. Clio]

230. I appreciate your perspective, but in what European country do people of

African descent comprise 12% of the population? Thus, statistically speaking, how many people of African descent are likely to be celebrities, in the first place? Particularly in the rather limited fields of the entertainment industry or American sports like football and basketball? The real test is our power structure -- how many African Americans are at the very top of our political and economic pyramid?

And just recently I read of racist taunts during a game of some kind by kids from a wealthy white school against their rivals from a black, poor school. That sort of thing is still very much alive and well in the U.S., too.

But you should Google Josephine Baker, and France, and also World War I, and African American soldiers in France -- from their perspective, Europe was a haven of tolerance and opportunity.

[Lost-in-FL]

231. Josephine Baker, et al.

was yeeeeeeears back. Besides Seal and Boateng, I don't know of any recent others.

My partner who played soccer for 18 years was trying to get to __________ national team and all his friends were pissed when they found out that he didn't made the cut (even with a very promising career). He was the only black player. Apparently, the head of the selection board was a bigot. His couch was pissed, he even appealed the decision but my partner was heartbroken. He never played soccer again and decided to move back to the US. If that was here in the US, he would have gotten a scholarship and would be playing at least at the MLS.

[Ms. Clio]

234. I watch music videos on Link TV, and there are many non-white singers

who are popular in Europe. See this page:

http://music.linktvstore.org/world/europe

or this one: http://pariscombo.linktvstore.org/

[Lost-in-FL]

239. Not everyone

watches LinkTV so i don't think they are WELL know worldwide.

[Ms. Clio]

240. but they are well-known in the European countries where they perform

and live.

[Biernuts]

282. Gangs and drugs have killed far more black kids than the klan

ever dreamed of killing.

The overwhelming majority of violent crime involves people of the same race, white on white, black on black.

The reason the kids on the bus is even a story at all is because it's anomalous. Dog bites man isn't reported while man bites dog rates the front page since it's out of the ordinary.

[dipsydoodle]

54. I can tell you with absolute honesty

that the UK has certainly not been like that in my lifetime - I'm 62. I'm talking here specifically with regard to Afro-Caribbeans and black Africans. The main influx of immigration here was purposely and successfully encouraged in the mid 1950's. Speaking personally we were harmomised , no pun intended , by music and that's stayed pretty much the same ever since.

I was in Florida 1980 and with a deep tan, shorts, polo shirt and sneakers often got mistaken for being a local until I opened my mouth. I was horrified that on buses I got the occasional look of "do you want my seat" ? I coped with it by smiling and saying something along the lines "would you be kind enough to let me know which stop I need for so and so" just to let the person know in a friendly way that I was English and not a local pig.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

119. I'm so glad you made that clear!

TallahasseeGrannie: Local Florida Pig

[dipsydoodle]

233. Now, now

you were not meant to take that personally. I meant whoever the black folk thought, at that time, would have actually taken seat.:pals: ?

[TallahasseeGrannie]

272. Okay, I forgive you

you can come eat cookies on my porch.

[dipsydoodle]

274. If I ever get back to Florida

I might just take you up on that. And quite obviously if you ever get over here same offer applies.:pals:

[Nicole]

218. Info please?

we have grotesque events like the burning of the black community in Oklahoma City not that long ago

Which Oklahoma City community was that and how long ago is not that long ago?

I'm in Oklahoma & I haven't heard anything about that.

There was the burning of Greenwood, a Tulsa community, in the early 20's. While I do agree that it was grotesque, it was long ago & not in Oklahoma City. Greenwood's destruction is a horrible event in Oklahoma's history that happened over 80 years ago. While Oklahoma is far from perfect, we're not guilty of recently burning down black communities.


BTW, Rosewood, Florida was destroyed after Greenwood, not before.

[Turbineguy]

65. That's not been my experience

countries who like to point out the problems the US has, have far fewer minorities. Also, racism is more of a class/economic problem than anything.

With the mass immigrations of persons of color into Europe they now have the sort of problems they used to ridicule the US about.

I've also been on the receiving end of "Japanese Only" in Japan.

[IronLionZion]

67. What a load of bullshit

What a silly thing to say. Can you back that up with examples? Do you know what racism is?

The US is one of the most tolerant and least racist societies in the entire world, precisely because of diversity and the "melting pot" mentality where everyone from everywhere can be American. And every American is from somewhere else.

It is NOT fun to be a person of color like I am and feel some real discrimination in many countries in Europe, Asia, or even Africa! You'll be refused service in restaurants and stores, and even the law enforcement will treat you badly. Many of those places don't have the civil rights legislation we have because they haven't had the civil rights movement like we had.

I'm Indian and most people know about the famous caste system. Now it's largely kept alive only in uneducated rural areas because how the hell can you tell someone's caste anyway? The most overt and horrible discrimination is still based on the color of your skin. Darker skinned people are treated badly and considered "ugly" or "undesirable" even within families. So there is a lot of skin bleaching going on when someone wants a job or to get married. The thinking is that people who spend a lot of time working outside in the sun would be dark...similar to American "rednecks".

[misternormal]

101. I would tend to disagree with your assessment...

... based on the "Ethnic Cleansing" that occurred in Bosnia and Serbia, and the same in Africa. I believe that we are nearly the most racist, but I feel others a a bit ahead of us.

[brentblack]

103. Racism

Start with Japan - probably the most xenophobic country - EVERYONE is Gaijin (slur on par with the N word)
Move on to Germany - black footballers are taunted with Monkey sounds and of course the old 3rd Reich
Next onto Mexico - Indigenous peoples are discriminated against and shunned by the elite. BTW...not all inhabitants are Mexican - many will fight you if you say different.


I could name more, but I think the real issue is that there is NO other country in the world with our diversity. Good and bad, we deal with it all.


You are bound to have problems when you are so diverse, but the upside FAR outweighs the minor culture scuffles that arise.

Now...that said...this woman in this story needs to be fired. She will be subject to civil penalties. This, IMHO, is NOT a jailable offense. Maybe on an ethical scale, but not legally.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

109. How many countries...

let an entire major city be destroyed because it was mostly a hated ethnic minority?

Only thing that pops into my head is Saddam gassing the Kurds.

[The Wizard]

166. it's just become

acceptable with the Klan (read Republicans) in charge.

[Virginia Dare]

35. Not by a long shot...

you get 100 miles outside of Washington D.C. in the rural areas of Virginia, and things really haven't changed much socially since 1865.

[nmliberal]

47. And not just in the South

Here in New Mexico, when I stated to a friend that it was nice that our community wasn't racist, she replied that I wouldn't see it that way if I worked in the Public Defenders' office like she did where she saw a kinder 'justice' if one was white, not Hispanic, Black or Native American.

Since then, I've heard people use the "n" word as well as the ugly terms for Arabs.

No, racism is alive and well in the US

[wryter2000]

61. Welcome to DU

:hi:

I don't think you'll find many people here who assume racism is dead. Heck, it isn't even dead in the better places in this country. I've seen the N word in Berkeley (not by anyone in authority, of course).

[nmliberal]

164. Thanks for the welcome

I have come to consider DU my home, my family...I have become active in the local Democratic Party and feel much better working for the change we all hope for.

[stepnw1f]

71. We Have Racism Here in the North Too

But if this shit happened say in Mass., the guy would be hanging from his balls nailed to a tree upside-down. This type of shit almost never occurs up here. Much more suttle and closeted.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

7. I'd like to hear the bus driver's rationale for this

before having a hissy. It could be that the black kids are all on age group that she wants in the back, or some other bus management issue. If she said or implied that justs the white kids sit in the front, then I will have a hissy.

If you see anything else about it, please post it.

[Sherman A1]

9. Agreed

[Solly Mack]

20. the article gives the ages of 5 of the kids - wide spread of ages

from 15 down to 5

Quote from the article:
"Sessoms aunt, Iva Richmond, is the mother of two of the children, ages 14 and 15, and foster parent to three others, ages 5, 6 and 10. Janice Williams, who is the mother of the other four children, is Richmond's neighbor. All nine children catch the bus at a stop on Ashland Road"

So I think you can cross off seating the kids by "one age group"

[C_eh_N_eh_D_eh]

57. It also says she crowded the 9 kids onto 2 seats.

I think we can rule out any altruistic motives here.

[Solly Mack]

58. I agree

[Recursion]

48. Having grown up in Mississippi, I would assume...

...that the black and white kids were constantly fighting and the driver wanted to separate them to keep some peace on the bus (at least that was always happening when I was riding a school bus 20 or so years ago).

Obviously, telling black children to get to the back of the bus was the wrong solution, but that's my guess about what was happening.

[shanti]

85. don't sugar coat the actions of the bus driver

it's wrong any way you look at it.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

115. It's wrong if it is true

It's amazing how issues regarding teachers and bus drivers can get turned around when it is kids doing the telling. I still want to hear from the driver. However, is she put 9 kids in one seat (which sounds fishy to me) that is illegal.

[Stand and Fight]

156. Two seats... Read the article! Good grief.

Get a grip. This is taken directly from the article:

"And the nine children had to share only two seats, meaning the older children had to hold the younger ones in their laps."

You're so intent on denying the reality of the situation that you're failing to comprehend what is right in front of you.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

197. Hold on now

Do you believe everything you read in a newspaper? I know I don't. As an employee of a school system, I know how stories get skewed. This thread amounts to a pile on when we don't know the facts yet. It amazes me how if we on DU read something that supports our world view, then we believe it lock, stock and barrel. But if it is contrary to our world view, then the msm is crooked and a bunch of liars.

I'm not in denial. I am simply not rushing to judgment.

[knitter4democracy]

232. Very good point.

I was called a racist when I taught high school. I didn't give a student an A on his research project (it didn't meet the criteria for an A, which I'd put in writing for all the students to know when I assigned the thing), so his mom called me up late one night and started yelling not long into the phone call. She then told me that it was "common knowledge" that black males could never get A's in my class (patently false, but I couldn't correct her because of the law in Ohio on grades) and that "all the students knew" I was racist.

Frankly, it hurt. I had worked hard with her son, tried to get him to do better work, and he had just blown the assignment off until the very last minute. I worked hard with all my students, but they just didn't want to work as hard as I did for their grades, and their grades reflected that.

After that call, I sat up and did a grade analysis by gender and by race, and I couldn't find any bias at all. I had a bell curve either way. It was a good thing I did it, though, because I got hauled into the principal's office a couple of days later to defend my grades. That parent had convinced a couple of others to call and complain about my "racist grading policies."

Still hurts.

[AbbyR]

215. I'd like to hear from the driver, too.

Just recently I attended a festival in a small southern town. I was sitting down resting when three children came up to me and asked several times for money for the rides. I was surprised, to say the least, and looked at the one who had asked and said, as politely as I could, "I don't know you. Why would I give you money?" (These were well-dressed kids who had to pay to get into the park where the festival was held.)

About 20 minutes later, when I was in another part of the park talking to some folks, the three kids came up to me with their grandmother in tow. The women yelled at me for a good five minutes, asking me why I didn't have any respect for her grandchildren and why I was such a racist. I finally told her that I wasn't rude, I just wasn't going to give money to the kids, and a policeman who heard her screaming, told her to go away.

Not a half hour later, the kids' mother came up and started the whole thing again. All because I wouldn't give the kids any money for entertainment.

I don't think that makes me a racist, but if it had been reported in the paper, we might have seen something like "Racist woman berates black children" or the like.

I'm NOT saying that the bus driver was right, and if it is true, she should certainly be fired or at least fined and given some sensitivity training. But maybe we're not getting the real story. Possible?

Kids know very well what buttons to push with parents. They could have been badly treated, and in the south, it's probably even more possible. But there are two sides to every story, and maybe - I said MAYBE - the kids weren't telling the truth.

[IronLionZion]

70. Good point, they could just be bad kids

But some people assume that black kids are bad. So I don't want to jump to conclusions without seeing all the facts.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

116. Usually you don't let the bad kids sit in the back

You keep them up by the driver.

[barb162]

98. Another wise post, TallahasseeGrannie

[Stand and Fight]

150. Did you read the entire article?

I feel that if you had the glaring fact that the kids' ages range from five to 14 would have impressed upon you that this is not because of the excuse you stated. All black kids in the back of the bus, all whites up front... Oh yeah! That's bus management -- racist bus management at it's very fucking finest and served up American style.

[proud2BlibKansan]

194. Yes I was wondering if she assigned seats based on where the stops were

Some of our drivers do that and it does result in a segregated bus.

But if there is not a reasonable explanation for this seat assignment, then I will be at the head of the line calling this driver a racist pig.

[fishwax]

221. younger black kids had to sit on the older kids laps

because there were only two seats for nine kids. So it wasn't a matter of age groups.

I can't think of any explanation that would make it acceptable to force african american children to sit at the back of the bus and reserve the front of the bus for white children.

[zbdent]

8. This guy will be hailed as a hero while the teacher who wanted a

discussion about flag burning will lose his job ...

:eyes:

Watch the racists cackle in glee as the union (which the REDstatementality driver probably denigrates every chance he gets) tries to minimize the damage to this driver ... by defending him as their rules command ...

[Judi Lynn]

10. The story gets uglier, and uglier. It appears to be larger than just

the bus driver. From the article:

And the nine children had to share only two seats, meaning the older children had to hold the younger ones in their laps.

A new solution reached Monday by School Board officials has a black bus driver driving across town to pick up the nine black children.

We've really come a long way, haven't we? Jeezus.

[psychopomp]

11. Yeah, I saw that

The "solution" is to have an African American driver come in and bus the African American kids. That does not sound like a solution to me, at all.

Why not just replace the driver with one who will not tolerate racist attitudes on the bus?

[Biernuts]

16. Yes, we HAVE come a long way. There was a day when this would

never have broken the noise level. The fact of it being a story is evidence that it is anomalous, not the accepted view.

And yes, the driver has explaning to do. If there is a reason (kids were seated based on when they get off for example, or all the troublemakers were seated where the driver could keep closer control in them)

Those who presume guilt and assign racism without possession of all the facts are themselves fanning racism flames.

[Judi Lynn]

24. Why did the bus driver call to apologize?

Why was a special measure taken to assign a black bus driver to the black children?

They left a message any idiot could read.

[Solly Mack]

21. I know!! That line lets you know it goes so much more deeper than the bus

driver

[misternormal]

104. Stupid solution...

... Fire the "bus driver", and hire someone who is not an ignorant red neck. Simple.

[KansDem]

121. Racist...and unsafe.

I can't help but believe the children were put into an unsafe situation with this move...

[acmavm]

12. This is just so screwed up I can't find the words to express

my disgust.

And now a black driver has to go pick up these kids? Isn't that segregation in its own ugly, petty way?

This country has, since bush** was appointed in 2000, slipped back into the Dark Ages.

[screembloodymurder]

15. The South will rise again.

If left unchecked, we'll all be working on plantations.

[mmonk]

17. It's like going back in time.

[Solly Mack]

18. Oh, I'm livid

I'd just want to destroy the people who did that to my children.

Things like this wound the soul.. saying "violation of civil rights" just doesn't cover it...it's so much more in reality. The damage goes deeper than some legal term can ever express.

[Vidar]

23. Bush followers rally: "Forward into the past."

[AndyA]

25. We can see where 6 years of conservative, Christian family values are

taking our country: right back to the days when discrimination and bigotry were perfectly acceptable. Rosa Parks must be spinning in her grave. Have we learned nothing from the past? Are we doomed to repeat it?

We must get the bigoted, war mongers out of power. They are rapidly undoing generations of progress and growth. This is completely unacceptable.

[bdamomma]

27. how disgusting

yea, everyone is equal in the US, :sarcasm:

[MaineDem]

29. This is horrendous

There are no words for how despicable this is!

[bluestateguy]

31. Bush's base

his people, his supporters, his friends.

[DiverDave]

32. Whats next?

Jim Crow?

Yeah, we've come a long way, baby.:sarcasm:

[Greeby]

33. Rosa Parks is spinning in her grave

:grr:

[enid602]

34. 2006?

"...other aspects of the school system's operations, including pupil-teacher ratio as it relates to the numbers of white and black children..." Suggests that black and white children are in seperate classrooms.

[Stinky The Clown]

36. I read this headline and had to look at my watch to see what year it was

It would seem some watches have been unwound since about 1959 .......

[The Backlash Cometh]

38. Jesus. When will this nightmare end?

[babylonsister]

39. I thought we were regressing, now I know it. nt

[Kickoutthejams23]

41. This is nuts.

Hopefully the woman involved will do some time.

I hardly think this is a cause for south bashing. This is one woman obviously off her rocker. The outrage and news coverage shows that this is hardly the norm.

[Joe Bacon]

43. Not just the south

Pennsylvania is just as racist, once you get out of Pittsburgh or Philadelphia. When my mother was dying, I went to see her with my girlfriend. We went for a walk in my hometown and lost count of the times ignorant fools used the "N" word because she's black. When mom died, I went back alone and I will never return there again.

[xchrom]

44. the more things change -- the more they stay the same.

[VLC98]

45. That's outrageous! However, for what it's worth...

my family moved to GA last year and my 13 year old son started riding the bus to school for the first time since 1st grade. When I asked him how it went, he replied, "Mom, Rosa Parks wasted her time because all the white kids sit up front and the black kids are at the back". These children are all 6th grade and up, and it seems they segregate themselves, which makes me feel sad. The fact that a bus driver would do such a thing to elementary age kids is disgusting.

[Hav]

46. .

It's bad enough that there are bus drivers like this guy, but apparently, the "whilte" kids are just ok with this kind of treatment for non-whites, they probably see it as something normal.

[GoldenOldie]

51. The "Contract with America," opened the doors

Remember Newt Gingrich's Mama telling Connie Chung during an interview that her little Newty said Hillary Clinton was a bitch. Newt and his contract signatories were offended and called for an apology and the firing of Chung.

This Administration blasted through those doors and attacked anyone who got/gets in their way with all-out hate and ugliness. The verbal attacks by Rush Limbaugh upon one-little girls looks, Chelsea Clinton.....CON's got a big chuckle out of that and are still using it now that Chelsea is a beautiful, successful young woman. The well-paid for vicious verbal assault on any and all war veterans, ie., Gore, Kerry, Clelland, Murtha, etc. VP Dick Cheney who stood on the floor of the House and told an elected Rep of WE THE PEOPLE to F--k Off. The Idiot President who thinks it's funny to belittle journalists because he is incapable of holding an honest press conference.

This Administration along with the well-paid, well controlled media whores who willingly do the dirty work for the CON's .......calling anyone who disagrees with them traitors, unpatriotic, and those are their nice words. This Administration has made it OK for the racists, bigots, to come out of their shells and do what they do best, HATE.

[pansypoo53219]

49. i didn't get to ride a school bus til 5th grade

and was bussed to an even more integrated magnate school. i prefered the back seat. also black kids. didn't see color. like stephen colbert.
but this is just fucked up. welcome to Bush's amerikkka, the train to the 21st century made a u-turn.

[quiet.american]

52. America, the beautiful...why weren't both white and black parents outraged

If the article is taken at face value, it appears none of the white parents were upset over the driver's actions. Lovely.

[ArmchairMeme]

55. Television Show Makes Segregation Entertainment!!!

This morning I read that

"The new season of 'Survivor' will be a race among races.

At the start of the reality show's 13th edition, 'Survivor: Cook Islands,' 20 contestants will be organized into four tribes divided along ethnic lines -- black, white, Hispanic and Asian, CBS announced Wednesday."

The newest sensationlism. I find it dispicable!

[wryter2000]

68. WTF?

I won't be watching that Survivor. I hope someone convinces them how effed up that is and they drop the idea. :mad:

[newspeak]

170. yeah, and Limpballs has been doing his best to put the

stereotypical spin on it. It is down right sick!!!! Let's see, if the whites win, then some of these talking bigots will tell their audience that whites are superior-see, now we have proof. If the blacks win, see how animalistic they can be, they can't be trusted--I didn't know blacks could swim--If the asians win, they are shifty, you can't trust them since they have too much brains for their own good. The talking neo-con moronic heads are already talking about the new Survivor show and their own blend of racism!!!! Some of these shows have become more sick and depraved, TV is becoming a big waste of time!!!!!

[Ms. Clio]

198. Media Matters has the quotes from Limpbough

We've been looking at this here amongst ourselves, and our early money is going on the Hispanic tribe, providing they stay unified.

We don't know who makes up the -- I mean, we've got the names here of all these members of the tribes, but Hispanic encompasses a lot. You could have a Cuban in there. You could have a Nicaraguan. You could have a Mexican or two. You could have any number. And you know, if they start fighting for supremacy amongst themselves, that could lead to problems. But our early money is on them anyway, because these people have shown a remarkable ability, ladies and gentlemen, to cross borders, boundaries -- they get anywhere they want to go. They can do it without water for a long time. They don't get apprehended, and they will do things other people won't do. So, our money, early money, is on the Hispanics.

The white tribe, I have to tell you -- I don't have a whole lot of hope in the white tribe. The Asian -- the Asian-American tribe probably will outsmart everybody, but will that help them in the ultimate survival contest? Intelligence is one thing, but raw, native understanding of the land and so forth -- this is probably why the Native Americans were excluded, because they were at one with the land here, and they probably would have an unfair advantage.

The African-American tribe, tough to handicap on this one, because you just -- it's -- it's -- there are many characteristics here that you would think give them the lead and the heads up in terms of skill and athleticism and so forth. The Asians, as I say -- the brainiacs of the bunch. The Hispanic tribe -- they've probably shown the most survival characteristics of any -- What? What are you shaking your head about for? What are you -- well -- well, I don't know that CBS is going to let them get away with that. The -- we were talking about the white tribe. We're speculating among ourselves that if the white tribe behaves as it historically has, they will bring along vials of diseases; they will end up oppressing the other groups; they will deny them benefits; deny them their property, steal it from them, and you know, put them on some kind of a benefit program. The white tribe put everybody else on some kind of benefit program, but the benefit program, of course, will not be enough. There will be no education. The white tribe will not allow any health care.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200608240003?src=newsbox-atrios.blogspot.com

[Lost-in-FL]

226. That's disgusting!!

:nuke: :grr:

[berni_mccoy]

60. THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!

:mad:

[ananda]

62. Now..

.. I applaud the Black activists for taking swift action,

.. but where were these people when their people were deprived
of the vote in 2000, 2002, and 2004?

It's because of all the vote fraud that idiot rightwing whites feel
emboldened to show overt racism!!!!!

sue

[InvisibleTouch]

66. Wait - what century are we in, again? n/t

[Selteri]

73. Wow, when I made the comment about going back to the 50s.

I didn't mean it that literally! This is beyond absurd. I hope they fire that bus driver to start.

[IWantAChange]

74. Is anyone surprised??

The Administrations response to Katrina because it wasn't part of the 'base' set the tone - replacing hope with fear and caring with indifference.

[robinlynne]

77. My jaw just dropped. can't even reply.

[LynneSin]

78. WAIT A MINUTE - when did I wake up back in 1946?

:shrug:

I swore it was 2006 when I went to bed last night

[bkcc]

79. Apparently, it's still 1946 down in the South. n/t

[TallahasseeGrannie]

123. The south is a big, big place

and my black teacher's aide..sitting here next to me tells me the only time she has been harrassed for color (she is very dark complected) is in Boston. She refuses to go back.

[bkcc]

241. Boston is one of the most racist cities in the North.

I understand completely.

[Up2Late]

80. Grrrrrrrrrrrr!

I'm speechless. :banghead:

[Judi Lynn]

81. Here's a description of the area, written in July.

Thursday, July 06, 2006
I have seen the future, and it is bright

Bright like fire, that is. Like fire reflecting off the tin siding of a shack on wheels. Exhibit A: Terrence Carter of the Smith Community near Coushatta, Louisiana. Who, upset at being dumped by his girlfriend, kidnapped her 5 year old child and burned the child alive.

This Terrence Carter could have been one of my students when I taught in the Coushatta schools (but he isn't, he apparently dropped out before he got to me). For those unclear on what Coushatta is, Coushatta is the parish seat and only major town in the 3rd-poorest parish (county) in the 2nd-poorest state in the United States. The town has a small hospital (run by the Catholic Church, interestingly enough), a single grocery store on Main Street, a good hardware store, and a few restaurants and gas stations, and not much else. Ooops, I forgot about the tractor sales lot and the Chevy dealer, which only sells Chevy trucks, and the "hotel" which is basically a junkyard (I suppose you could stay in it if you wanted, but the dude who owns it collects junk from around the countryside and tries to sell it to tourists coming through, not that there's tourists coming through, but a guy's gotta hope, I guess!). There's also a couple of jakeleg garages, you know the type, ramshackle metal barns and some dude inside with grease-stained overalls and a chaw of chewing terbaccer who has a few hand tools and a hand jack and that's about it (but one of these guys changed out my fuel pump when I needed it so I can't diss them too much).

The school district when I taught there paid us teachers a lofty $17,100 per year. That wasn't much money even with the low cost of living there. The school district has a total of less than 2,000 students, of which 3/4ths go to the consolidated elementary/middle school, and the remainder (approximately 400 students in all) to the high school. The "official" dropout rate is under 5%, but the "real" dropout rate is around 50%.
(snip/...)

http://badtux.net/2006/07/i-have-seen-future-and-it-is-bright.html

[pitohui]

162. thanks for that judi lynn, not the same coushatta i was thinking of

the coushatta i visit is a native american reservation in southwest louisiana with an impressive gaming resort

apparently there are two coushattas in louisiana -- now that i am reminded, one extremely poverty stricken, i think i have been told this before but didn't retain the information

[Ms. Clio]

187. Not coincidentally, it was also the worst area for lynchings in the state

[pitohui]

262. northwest louisiana is indeed a scary and racist area

i suppose i expect no better of them, sigh

i'm glad this didn't occur in the coushatta i was thinking of (the one in the south with the casino resort)

[Tight_rope]

82. MAJOR FUCKING LAWSUIT!

SUE the hell outta the school district. I'm sure it's not the first time this prick has showed some kinda racist behavior. :spank: I wouldn't be surprised if the school has had complaints about this asshole.:puke:

[jseankil]

127. Great soultion, make the school system suffer because one person

Really how will that help the situation? People make dumb moves all the time, hold them accountable you wanting to take money away from the school system only hurts the students, duh.

[Richard Steele]

284. The blame for any student "harm" belongs to the School District.

Suing may indeed "harm the students"; but it at least has a CHANCE
of preventing such behavior in the future.
Do you think the students aren't being HARMED by allowing
this type of thing to continue?
Your "don't sue" idea would guarantee that past harms will
continue, at minimum, and likely ESCALATE, as history has shown.

And you seem to be blaming the VICTIM with your "suing harms
the students" notion. It's a very Conservative pro-business,
anti-human-rights idea. And, like most such, it is illogical and incorrect.

The BLAME for any financial harm rests squarely and SOLELY
with the person or persons who caused the School District
to incur the LIABILITY.

A court case does not CREATE liability; Liability is created
the moment a crime or infraction is committed.
A plaintiff merely asks a court to RECOGNIZE and DENOTE liability
which ALREADY EXISTS,
and to order that appropriate steps be taken to ameliorate it.

The students aren't harmed because a plaintiff files a suit;
they can only be harmed IF and BECAUSE the school district is GUILTY.
So please blame the District, not its VICTIMS.

[I Have A Dream]

84. All I can say is...

:wtf:

[GOTV]

88. When will Bush meet with the Bus Driver?

... and perhaps make a campaign commercial with her.

[Peace Patriot]

90. "Innocent until proven guilty"--true. But even if it was relatively

innocent (--and her apology doesn't make her guilty, in my opinion), it is important to be SENSITIVE to PERCEPTIONS of black people, who, only forty years ago--in LIVING MEMORY--endured "colored" drinking fountains, "colored" schools, "colored" exclusion from voting, and from even minor positions of power, from white restaurants, from white hotels, from white hospital entrances, from white doctor's offices and from white neighborhoods, and WORSE (beatings, rape, death)--Every. Day. Of. Their. Lives.

I saw it myself. I have never been so shocked in my life as when I first saw "colored" drinking fountain/"white" drinking fountain--marked with signs in a public park. This is America? I experienced it myself--in a "white" laundromat in Alabama, I was told not to mixed "colored" and "white" clothes. I was living with blacks, as a civil rights worker, and took everybody's clothes to the laundromat. The laundromat proprietor (a white Alabama woman) knew who I was (small town). She said the machines did not generate hot enough water to sterilize them against the influence of black clothing.

:wow:

Just try to imagine living with that EVERY DAY. The damage to children is especially terrible. And it is extremely difficult not to pass the loss of self esteem--the loss of personhood, the pervasive attitude towards you that you are some sort of subhuman--from generation to generation.

So I'm all for blacks fighting back--and whites and others with them--at even the slightest hint of a return of this UNPARALLELED SHAME OF OUR NATION. Only the slaughter of Native Americans equals it in sinfulness and crime.

Bigotry is certainly not gone--and with tinpot dictators like Bush fanning the flames of every kind of bigotry they think they need as a 'talking point' for why they "won" stolen elections--bigotry against gays, bigotry against brown immigrants, bigotry against women, bigotry against Muslims, bigotry against Venezuelans--you name it--it is never far from infecting our nation once again, or at least FOOLING it.

The de-institutionalization of slavery and segregation--and the removal of bigotry as a socially acceptable attitude in most circles--was THE finest accomplishment in our history. Nothing makes me prouder of our country. I know it's not over. But, by God, I never thought we'd get as far as we've gotten. Looking forward from back then, I could not imagine black mayors and sheriffs, black Senators, black candidates for president, and all the rest, happening as fast as it did. It was the WILL OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE to end the terrible legacy of slavery, and it was accomplished through the incredible courage of black citizens themselves.

If this bus driver has dared to institute segregation on her bus, she should be fired--and she and those who permitted this to happen should be sued! Segregation is only one step away from lynchings and death! Never again! NEVER AGAIN!!!


------------------------------

(Edited: to change him to her--the white bus driver. I made the sexist assumption that it was a white male. Interesting.)

[Momgonepostal]

94. Amazing that crap like this still happens in 2006 nt

[silverweb]

95. WTF?

Unbelievable. They really are trying to push us back into the 1950s.

This has to be stopped in its tracks NOW.

:grr:

[genieroze]

96. You gotta be f**king kidding me.

[nealmhughes]

102. Historically speaking, the Red River Valley is "different."

And also the site of one of the worst massacres in US histoy, a race war waged there a century ago after Reconstruction...

Not sure if this has anything to do with the original Shreveport news article, but it is part of the local history.

[Ms. Clio]

188. yes, that's an excellent point

It also has the worst lynching record of the entire state.

[samfishX]

112. I'd Like To Know WHY

She sent them to the back.

When I was in school some yers back, something similar happened.
Our bus route got diverted to pick up some kids from the...well, black neighborhood.
There was maybe 12 or so people, if I recall. And they were <i>all</i> SO roudy, rude and obnoxious to everyone else on the bus, including the driver, that the driver eventually said, "You're all siting in the back from now on".
Actually, there was one girl who was really nice and kinda got unfairly lumped in with the jerks. I didn't think that was fair to her. That always bothered me, admittedly.
But as for the rest of them, I didn't care. It got old quick when some jack ass would come sit down in your seat just to pester you by pretending he wanted to be friends.


But still...my point is that just because it smells like racism, doesn't really mean it IS.
Just relating my personal experiances on the matter.

[Peace Patriot]

120. Irony: I just have to add this. One of the mind-boggling ironies of my

service as a civil rights worker in Alabama in 1965--me, a young white girl from So. Calif., a student in Los Angeles--was that that was the summer of the "Watts Riots." I heard about it in Alabama. And I didn't know where Watts was. I'd never heard of it. Born and raised in Calif.

America is a racist society, which has tried to overcome the legacy and horror of slavery. The REASON that we have such a large African-American population is that African-Americans' forebears were brutally kidnapped and brought here and sold here as SLAVES--and were owned human beings throughout the southern states until the Civil War. We were not unique in using slave labor, but we were among the last of the civilized nations to stop this horror--and it was not easily gotten rid of. It took hundreds of thousands of deaths in the Civil War. That legacy lingers on--in bigotry and in poverty. Do not underestimate the impact on current black citizens of their forebears not only owning nothing--but BEING owned. The great promise of America was never theirs. No homes. No land. No possessions. Not even their own bodies. They did not own themselves. They COULD NOT advance. They HAD NOTHING to will to their children. Deliberately stunted skills and education. Families brutally forced apart. Obeisant behavior required on pain of death. And this DID NOT STOP after the civil war--but CONTINUED through the 1950s, one hundred years AFTER the civil war. Ownership of human beings was outlawed. But racism and hatred persisted and was OFFICIAL POLICY through the '60s era of the civil rights movement.

During the slave era, many rebelled and were beaten/raped into submission, or killed. Some escaped to the freer parts of America. And there was an "Underground Railroad" from south to north, organized by white liberals in the north, prior to the civil war, to get slaves out of the south. And there were many legal disputes in the course of this, over whether a southern gentleman's PROPERTY--his slave!--had to be returned to him, if IT escaped! Also, bitter disputes within the newly chartered midwestern and western states over whether to come into the union as slave states, or not.

It was a long, long, long bitter battle--that is not really over, even now. In OTHER western countries--particularly England and France--Africans were NOT SLAVES! The whites may have had slaves in the colonies. They did not permit it in their home countries! The slave trade was thus easier to expunge. (England did it long before we did.) There is therefore a DIFFERENT ATTITUDE toward blacks TODAY--and it was quite different even then. In France, for instance, Thomas Jefferson's slaves were FREE when he lived there as our ambassador. (It's one of the curiosities of his story--why his slaves didn't escape him, or why he didn't free them there--in revolutionary France.) (Answer: They were his family!) It has only been 140 years since we had slavery in half of this country. Its bitter legacy lives on--both in deprivation of wealth, and in the arrogant attitudes of white bigots and demagogues--and sometimes in the oblivious attitude of well-meaning whites.

I have a friend who is a highly educated and sophisticated black woman who told me one day that there are parts of this country--and they were not just in the south--where she cannot travel freely. Pockets of bigotry and danger. Black people have their own system of communication about where they can safely go, and where they cannot. I had no idea that this was occurring--because it never affects ME.

I think we may well be unique among western nations in the long lingering impacts of slavery. Whatever racism there may be in Europe is NOT based on a history of slavery. Servitude, sometimes--or tribalism. But not slavery--a far, far worse type of bondage. And much of the problem in France, for instance, is a culture clash (with immigrant Muslims). It simply does not have the bitter sting of one race having OWNED another. Other modern societies are, in fact, much more mature than we are, in this regard. Also, English and Euro countries have tried to do A LOT MORE by way of recompense to people from their colonies and other oppressed groups. We abandoned the "war on poverty"--in the Reagan era--in favor of the rich getting richer. And who are the rich in this country? Who are the people whose families have been able to accumulate wealth from generation to generation (now, with multinational corporations have acquired that same right--to just keep accumulating land and resources)? They are overwhelmingly white. Few blacks have been able to turn the advances in civil rights into economic advances. Because the rich stopped that process. A few blacks have benefited. Not many.

Those who posted above asking for "evidence" of our racism: I challenge you to ask well-traveled black Americans WHERE they feel safest, and WHERE they feel the absence of bigotry (or the least bigotry). And I guarantee you that most of the answers will not be the United States of America.

I also challenge you to connect the dots between poverty and racism. Why are so many blacks poor? Is that not a consequence of racism, and the legacy of slavery? Where in the civilized world is the poverty that we still see in OUR black communities tolerated? Where else in the civilized world is neglect and hopelessness so apparent? Katrina exposed it to the world--to our great shame.

Americans don't want this. And most Americans are not racists. I am convinced of that. But we HAVE allowed the rise of corporate/fascist power that has stopped our progress as a civilized people, on this and many other matters. We ARE responsible for that--collectively, as a people. And we MUST change it--beginning with the restoration of transparent vote counting, the basis of all progress.

[Tansy_Gold]

180. Institutionalized racism

Thanks, Peace Patriot, for an excellent post.

To add to what you wrote, I think it's also important for all of us to remember that racism -- the deliberate discrimination against individuals based on their inclusion in a racially-defined group -- was institutionalized in this country both overtly and covertly long after the Civil War ended legal chattel slavery.

Racial segregation continued as a legal institution until the 1960s. Not only could Blacks (and other people of color as well as white-skinned minorities such as Jews) not drink from certain water fountains or sit in certain sections of movie theatres, but they could not buy property in certain neighborhoods, could not obtain employment in certain professions, could not attend certain prestigious colleges and universities.

But even after the legal impediments were removed, the financial burdens remained. A Black professional who had the income to buy a home, rather than rent, could not purchase property in a "better" neighborhood, and so the purchasing power of Black dollars was less than that of White dollars. As the properties purchased by the post-war generation increased in value in the 70s and 80s and 90s, affording my working-class parents and their cohort a much more comfortable retirement as well as a substantial inheritance to leave to their children and grandchildren, the same generation of African Americans, Hispanics, and other minorities will have far less wealth to bequeath. This means that over the past 50 years or so, they have had far less collateral to put up for business loans, far less to subsidize their children's college educations, and so on.

As we look at the accumulation of wealth by the top 1% or even the top 1/10% and promote the inheritance tax as a way of preventing the establishment of a financial aristocracy, we need to remember that this has always been done to the minority communities: They've been prevented from accumulating any kind of substantial wealth that would allow them as a group to migrate into the middle- and upper-classes with the same facility as Whites.

And when the various civil rights legislations of the 60s and 70s, especially affirmative action, began to break down the barriers, other means were found to maintain the institutionalized racism that governs the American way of life. The breaking down of affirmative action protections, the various "tough on crime" legislations everywhere that have resulted in the incarceration (and resultant disenfranchisement) of so many African American men as well as the seizure of assets of the innocent family members of alleged criminals.

Racism was written into the US Constitution, and was only BEGUN to be written out nearly 100 years after it was written in! During all that time, the institutionalization of White privilege became as ingrained as any other aspect of racism, since in order to discriminate AGAINST one group, you have to be discriminating to the BENEFIT of another. Whites benefited, and continue to benefit -- and many of them resist to this day any efforts made to level the playing field. They just refuse to give up.

So while racism may be rampant in other countries and other societies, and it surely is, the intensity of legal and socially-sanctioned discriminatation in this country must also rank right up there near the top (or bottom, depending on perspective).

But it doesn't surprise me. I personally know -- but assuredly do not like -- individuals who to this day believe anyone who isn't of White, Northern European descent has no business living in this country, and if they do, they should be grateful for any scraps thrown to them. The "n" word is still tossed about quite casually, along with all the other racial pejoratives referred to in polite conversation by initials only; much of the conversation I've heard from these folks is anything but polite.

So it's up to us, those who find the present news story as well as the conditions around us abhorrent, to continue to do something to change it. Maybe we won't succeed, but maybe we won't fail, either.


Tansy Gold

[KansDem]

122. I'm white and I PREFER to sit at the back...

Back of the bus...back of the plane...back of any kind of public transportation.

I just like to sit there... I feel more comfortable sitting there...

Does this mean I would have been told to move to the front? :mad:

[mwooldri]

131. Well I prefer the front...

... but only as long as I'm the only person on the bus (apart from the driver that is). Spent plenty a time in my college days being the only person for half the bus route and with little company other than the bus driver. I got friendly with a good number of them.

Otherwise the back seat was fun - more "bouncy". At least it was on about half the buses I was on.

But this thing about having to give up your seat because of skin colour ... EURGH. Now giving up your seat to a group containing small children, or for more frail individuals (what we used to call mothers with children and old people) - that made sense for them to sit and for me to stand. Come to think of it I'd be more likely to see someone of afro-carribean origin would be somone collecting the tickets on London buses, in the days of dual crewed buses. Most buses IIRC these days in London are single crewed vehicles.

Mark.

[AtomicKitten]

126. my heart almost stopped reading this

eom

[Burma Jones]

132. I expect there are those in Coushatta that claim that the kids are

lucky to be in America, that slavery was good for black folks and that this is all being blown out of proportion by outside agitators.....

I also expect there are more than a few folks in Coushatta that think the whole thing stinks.

Also, racism in the US is deep and not all home grown. I've lived in Hispanic areas (Houston and Silver Spring, MD) where blacks were absolutely despised and my neighbors made no bones about it.......I would be interested in a study of immigrant attitudes towards African Americans.....

[Ms. Clio]

133. and I have known Vietnamese who are also prejudiced against blacks

I think that many immigrants adopt the ideology of the dominant white race.

[YOY]

134. Silver Spring?

Silver Spring is REALY diverse. How is that possible? I mean, just take Georgia Avenue South and boom! You're in a primarily black neighborhood. That and it's so close to Tacoma!

[Burma Jones]

139. The Garden Apartments along Sligo Creek Parkway

behind the old Blair High School and then stretching up to Flower Avenue are predominantly Hispanic. Langley Park is hugely Hispanic these days. As you go to the other side of Sligo Creek towards the "revitalized" Silver Spring down to Shepherd Park and over to Rock Creek, you get more African American and White folks. The Asian population has also grown significantly...Silver Spring is the most diverse place I've ever lived but it is kinda broken down by neighborhood or apartment complex.

[YOY]

141. I forgot Langley Park

Mas Latinos there!

I saw a sign that said 'Save our Sligo' recently. I though it was due to folks worried about overdevelopment or something like that.

[jeffrey_X]

178. It's one of the first things they are taught....

black is bad.

[Ms. Clio]

183. I was so shocked the first time I heard a Vietnamese use their own version

of the n-word, which I can't spell, but sounds like "medan." She and her family had completely bought into all the racist stereotypes.

[Rottenmac]

136. I'm joining the KKK

... just so I can buy a gun, go to a 'secret' meeting and kill as many of these assholes as possible.

Seriously, these people do not deserve to exist in the 21st century.

[hedgehog]

138. Read the article carefully, then comment.

Clearly the parents were calling the school offices about behavior on the bus before this incident. The seat assignments were made in response to parents' complaints. The children involved all come from two households and all get on at the same bus stop. Granted, assigning the black children to the back of the bus has unfortunate connotations, but I wouldn't accuse the bus driver of racism without knowing her better.

As for nine kids in two seats; does anyone know how many kids are on the bus? Maybe all the seats are crowded.

On edit: I am continually amazed by some parents today. They are calling to complain at the slightest perceived insult to their kids. The kids are also something else. School districts are assigning bus aides and using video cameras to keep order on the buses. It used to be behave or walk. The cost of running schools goes up and up over trying to maintain discipline, meanwhile some kids aren't learning to read.

[Mongo1021]

144. Relax!

I must say, that as a former teacher, we need to take a moment because it’s probably not as bad a we think it is.
I don’t believe that any bus driver would be stupid enough to one day decide to require all black kids to sit at the back of the bus. My guess is that the driver set up assigned seating, and there ended up being a lot of black kids sitting in the back.
Perhaps the driver had the kids sit in the order they were picked up. Since the black kids lived in the same neighborhood, they ended up sitting together. Unfortunately, for the bus driver, those kids all ended up at the back of the bus.
One phone call to the newspaper later and we have a national civil-rights story.
Or the driver is a racist scumbag.

[Quantess]

175. Stupid people make the news every day.

I'm also a former school teacher, and although I'm shocked and aghast at this story, I'm not going to dismiss it just yet.

Again, stupid people make the news every single day.

[pitohui]

151. oh my god

i never heard about that, what a disgrace

[CollegeDUer]

157. Don't ever forget what certain parts of the country are like

Racism is alive and well.

[redqueen]

159. Sadly, this is not shocking.

Buchanan's recent comments about race... the response to Katrina... the way minority voters are treated...

This is just the latest symptom of the growing acceptance of half-hidden and even overt racism in this country.

We need leadership that acts against this kind of BS, not the kind of fake, criminal so-called-leadership which condones and encourages it.

[Turn CO Blue]

168. Unless those white kids were confined to wheelchairs

or otherwise severely impaired or disabled, this is completely indefensible.

[Name removed]

172. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Ms. Clio]

179. "the race-baiting put forth by the NAACP"

wtf?

[William769]

181. I don't think you will need to worry about many replys from this one.

[Quantess]

186. Yeah, probably not.

He'll be too busy eating pizza. For once, I get to the pizza party before it happens, not after.

[Ms. Clio]

189. I would hope not, if they are going to be in a similar vein

[Name removed]

245. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Ms. Clio]

247. How do you get any of that from the article?

They are asking for an investigation, not just of the bus driver, but of many aspects of the school system. And they are well within their rights to do so.

But I've done the search, and it's already pretty clear to me where you are coming from.

[Name removed]

248. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Ms. Clio]

249. and what does that mean? Be precise.

and do keep digging.

[Name removed]

250. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Ms. Clio]

254. As has already been explained, it's not just this one incident

that the NAACP is concerned about. And racism and segregation are exactly the issues the NAACP was formed to address.

And perhaps you could explain where in the article there is anything to support your contention that it's "only for the sake of raising cash."

Clearly that is just your ill-informed, completely-unsupported opinion.

Dig, dig, dig.

[Name removed]

255. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Ms. Clio]

256. "You're right, I had made up my mind the minute I read the article"

So you're just slinging mud at one of the most venerable civil rights groups in U.S. history without any evidence whatsoever. And like I said, I've already encountered your enlightened views on racism in your previous posts.

[Name removed]

258. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Ms. Clio]

263. "in my opinion, 'race' does not exist"

Well that that, and $2.00, will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

So what killed this woman, and thousands of other men, women, and children in the United States (including Native Americans, Latinos, and Asians)?

[fishwax]

259. um, yeah ... knee jerk much

So, if we are collecting your stated assumptions, we have:

the white kids on the bus were all well-behaved
the black kids on the bus are unruly
racism is an unlikely explanation for segregation on a bus
the naacp is only in it for the money
parents who question a policy under which all black kids are put in the back of the bus are not good parents

Did I miss any? You've managed quite a collection of utter crap in a very few posts. But at least you've given up pretending that you're reserving judgement or using logic.

And speaking of logic, why would a bus driver put the troublemakers at the back of the bus, further away from supervision?

[philosophie_en_rose]

277. Let's just assume that the Black kids are unruly and obnoxious.

That kind of judgment is surely okay, though - in your words- it's not anyone's business to investigate racism.

:eyes:

[Judi Lynn]

223. Logic couldn't hatch a phrase like "race-baiting put forth by the NAACP."

Possibly the oddest small collection of words one's likely to see here.

[fishwax]

227. sounds to me like you've already made your judgement

despite your protestations to the contrary. People who associate a segregated school bus with a pretty well-known history of segregated buses are "forthing at the mouth freeper" types, and the NAACP puts forth a bunch of "race-baiting." What a crock.

:wtf:

[Name removed]

246. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[fishwax]

257. you'll reserve judgement

but not of the NAACP :eyes:

[Ms. Clio]

265. funny how that works, isn't it?

[fishwax]

267. isn't it though?

not that it's transparent, or anything :rofl:

[Ms. Clio]

279. and by the time I get back, it's already gone

what a shame.

[VegasWolf]

176. Macaca. The republicans seem to think the only good, decent, hard-working

people have white skin and worship evangelical (ie, roll on the floor talking gibberish ).

[rodeodance]

182. "it is a personnel issue."---

.Superintendent Kay Easley will meet with the family members in her office this morning.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People also is considering filing a formal charge with the U.S. Department of Justice. NAACP District Vice President James Panell, of Shreveport, said he would apprise Justice attorneys of the situation this week. He's considering asking for an investigation into the bus incident and other aspects of the school system's operations, including pupil-teacher ratio as it relates to the numbers of white and black children, along with a breakdown of the numbers of black and white teachers employed.

"If the smoke is there, then there's probably fire somewhere else," Panell said in a phone interview from New Orleans. "At this point, it is extremely alarming. We fought that battle 50 years ago, and we won. Why is this happening again?"

Easley would not comment much on the allegations Wednesday, saying it is a personnel issue. She acknowledged that she has investigated the claim. And she confirmed that the bus driver did not run her route Wednesday, nor would she today.

Asked if the driver would work for the rest of the year, Easley said, "I'm not going to answer the questions. "» You're getting all that you're going to get from me. I'm sorry."

[Nikki Stone 1]

196. Did the busdriver say why she did it?

There's nothing in the article that indicates that the kids were out of line in any way, so I can't imagine why she even thought she could get away with this. If she thought nothing of doing something so incendiary and had no other reason for doing it, then there must be a larger culture that accepts this.

If any bus driver in Los Angeles did this for any reason--even if the kids WERE acting up--the driver would be fired and there would be out of court settlements.

[Marrah_G]

191. This is so disturbing

I cannot believe this would happen in 2006. It makes me very happy to live in the town I do. I live in a suburb between Boston and Providence and my town is relatively diverse. My children go to school with almost every ethnicity possible. Our neighborhood has all types of families and everyone gets along so easily. I know racism is alive and well in this country, but such blatant discrimination is just shocking. I hope some high powered attorney sees this and sues the hell out of that school system.

This is just SO wrong.

My 16 year old daughter has been reading DU and its so hard for her to understand how things can be so back wards in other parts of the country. Here she doesn't have to hide that she is Wiccan, her gay and lesbian friends are open about it, if she wants to date someone of another race its not a huge deal to "most" people and no one would ever, ever consider telling any child of color they need to "go to the back of the bus".

It isn't perfect, but I am SO glad to be raising my kids in an area and a time that is for the most part socially progressive and not stuck in a time warp.

[Poll_Blind]

192. I grew up near that part of Louisiana and I'm not surprised. Saddened...

...but definitely not surprised. One of the last thing that racism is, is burning crosses on lawns. It's the gentle segregation, the jokes you overhear at the crab or crawfish boil, the "...and then that monkey..." you notice when the adults are telling a story about their day, when the adult who's driving you to a friend's house asks you to roll up your window in the car because you're going to be going through "n****sville".

  And the time you were playing with the little black girl and the adult pulls you away- off, surely, to someplace more suitable and the way your white child eyes meet with her black child eyes as the distance increases, and you both start to cry.

  So horrible, so sad.

PB

[Raydawg1234]

193. Their sollution still sounds like segragation,

"A new solution reached Monday by School Board officials has a black bus driver driving across town to pick up the nine black children."

How about they fire the bus driver, make a public abology, and do their best to create equality in their schools. That's a no-brainer.

[jeff30997]

195. I agree !

Intelligent solution.

[2008]

199. I like this line: "Status of Red River Parish bus driver is unknown"

like he's been hospitalized and they don't know if he's going to make it

:rofl:

[Vinca]

202. Which side of the room are the lawyers lining up on? nt

[SalmonChantedEvening]

216. Disgusted beyond words

:cry: :mad:

[Guaranteed]

217. That is fucking IT, dude. I AM FUCKING SICK OF THIS SHIT.

I don't think I've heard of something that makes me this angry in years.

[McCamy Taylor]

219. The press will bury this under JonBennet news. People need to picket .

That town needs to be covered in protesters. Same for the DOJ until Al Gonzales gets his lily white butt down there to sort things out.

[katty]

225. they will! We are subjected to sicko Karr 24/7

[Tansy_Gold]

242. Alberto Gonzales has a "lily white" butt?

Did that comment need a :sarcasm: or was it "sarcasm-not-intended" slip?

Either way, it's still funny! ;-)

[TallahasseeGrannie]

273. Now, I've never actually seen

Mr. Gonzales's butt, but his complexion is more actually rather light caramel. Therefore, one would assume his butt is of the same color.

Now, if you want to see a lily white butt, you need to come take a look at mine. It is so white it glows in the dark.

[McCamy Taylor]

220. This is what happens when the DOJ does not enforce the law.

Al Gonzales, the Bush Administration and Roves New Southern Strategy are as much to blame as the racist folks in this town.

For decades they kept their racism under wraps because they knew that the feds would come in and slap them on the wrists. But now they know that Bush will not are to offend his loyal, racist base, so they feel free to do what they want. After all, they have seen their fellow racists get away with this and worse.

[greiner3]

222. State's rights, don't you get it?

[countingbluecars]

228. Yep, and the confederate flag

is just a symbol of southern heritage.

[McCamy Taylor]

229. ROFLMAO, You mean like Bush v. Gore, right?

[L0oniX]

235. I'm a people person ...I hate them all ...until I get to know them

[SoyCat]

237. I have just been dealing with this racist crap in my own family. My niece

has just been enrolled in a really awful private school for the sole reason of keeping her out of a public school that has a large percentage of black students.

Edit: I forgot to add that this is in SC.

[yrushocked]

251. Don't get too shocked...

Because this type of behavior is as American as apple pie. I was showing this article to a coworker a work (a big no-no) and I read all the comments and I seriously don't know why anyone is shocked. Things have changed, but we aren't anywhere near being all one big happy family. I was born and raised in the south, so something like this doesn't shock me at all.

At least in the south, they keep the racism open and on display. In the North and especially the West, they try to hide it more. I live in California now, and I believe this is the most racist state I have ever lived in. Just because you're blue doesn't mean your racism-free, you know. Some of the racist and sexist things I have heard out here blow away anything I've heard at a Georgia Klan Rally (the real Klan, not the Republican Primary).

Someone commented that America is the least racist country on earth, and I find that completely laughable. I belong to America's 2nd most hated race, African-American (Muslims and especially Arabs are number 1 for the moment), and people hate me for absolutely no reason; and by people, I also mean new Americans: Asians, Hispanics, and other Europeans. Hatred of my people goes all the way back to the 1600s when it was based on... whatever it was based on.

There are a number of Hispanics that hate Blacks: some hispanic gang members killed a old Black man in Los Angeles because they wanted to keep the neighborhood Hispanic (8/8/06). That was prosecuted as a hate crime and I remember reading they were all sent to jail.

Quite a few Asians have a strong distaste for Blacks, especially in the dating area. I remember this one Japanese girl's father told her "don't hang out with Blacks. They bad. They destroy America." I don't remember the Liberian Air Force nuking their country twice. This attitude is very prevalent here and in Canada.

And for both of those groups, and even white people, when I ride the train, what do their youth call each other? "Nigga". Unbelievable!

Quite a few myths and stereotypes exist today and they don't show signs of dying. Racism is an ingrained part of American life.

And it doesn't end there. There has been a long orchestrated effort to keep all minorities, especially Blacks, down. Just look up "race and intelligence", go to an "integrated" school, look at census tracts and see the average income of a "black" zip code and compare it to a "white" zip code. You can look up historical events like the Tulsa Race Riots, Watts Riots, MOVE bombing, THE TUSKEEGEE EXPERIMENT, the delay in passing the Civil Rights act, the rush to end reconstruction, and on and on and on.

I've lost faith that God is going to make these racists see the error of their ways. I guess He stopped caring about America.

I think I've said enough to be kicked off now.

[Spiffarino]

268. I grew up in California, and I agree with you

I live in North Carolina now. The small town where I grew up in California was - and probably still is - full of racists. The most common recipients of scorn are Mexicans. However, I remember a time when a black friend of mine rode his custom motorcycle in the 1984 Olympic Torch Relay. His friend's wife - a white woman - asked if she could ride with him for a while, and he said OK. They got about a half-mile down the street before some of the white folks in the crowd started kicking at her and yelling racist epithets. They had to get off the route before anything really bad happened.

When I hear people in NC telling me how liberal Californians are, I just laugh and shake my head.

[lilypad_567]

269. what part of california are both of y'all from

i am from a major city that is about 30 minutes from los Angeles, long beach, perhaps y'all heard of it?, and i go to a inner city school, i rarely see racist, or any of those crap, and those that do use the n word are african american who use it toward other african america, will i guess maybe it have something to do with human relation camps, also known as nccj. will, nccj/human relation camps, is a camp that preaches tolerant toward other people, the camp is located in the mountain, but it is only for the inner cities. the camp preach tolerant, and that you shouldn't be racism, sexism, able ism, class ism, hetersexualism, class ism, and ageism. the camp also said that even if you hate, that you shouldn't turn hate into violence, than we did speak out, where you go sit with your own race group, and than speak out about how you feel, than the other race said something nice back, like if your asian, and you said that asian ain't this and that, than the other race take their term, saying that yeah, i agree with you that asian aren't like that and like this. the camp was really fun. i just thought that california was a very tolerant state, i guess i was wrong. what part of california are you guys from?

[Spiffarino]

281. I grew up in Simi Valley

It was the only craphole in the state where the cops who beat Rodney King could get off scot-free. Simi is so right-wing they even stuck Ronald Reagan's carcass on the west end of town. Very white, very suburban, very Republican.

I'm glad to hear that they teach tolerance to students in Long Beach. There is some of that going on here in my new home town in NC, too. My daughter is growing up without much racism in her life and I'm grateful.

[OnionPatch]

287. Welcome to DU!

:hi:

I live in California now but grew up in Ohio. The racism in Ohio was blatant, out in the open. I noticed it much more when I returned after being gone for a long time. It actually shocked me to hear the N word tossed around like nothing after living here for ten years. There are a lot of racists here in California but it's not as out in the open because if someone used the N word around here, at least in my crowd, they would be virtually ostracized as a racist. That doesn't mean they don't do it in places they know they can get away with it but at least you don't have to hear that BS everywhere you turn.

You hope that things are slowly turning away from racism here in the US and then you hear a story like this. :(

[kineneb]

288. likewise welcome

And yes, there are parts of CA that are just as regressive as parts of the South- one has to remember our history here. Many people now populating the Great Valleys were refugees from the Dust Bowl and the poverty of the South; they simply brought their prejudices out West with them. Others have simply learned from them.

I am appalled by the actions of the bus driver, but I know that racism lurks just below the surface in all of the US. As others here have pointed out, slavery was legal for so long, and the attitudes of racism so institutionalized, that this society may never overcome the damage.

We should remember that the societal damage of slavery and racism is two-sided: both the victims and the perpetrators are injured. The victims of slavery, by being subject to that crime, and the perpetrators, by damaging rationalization of their supposed "superiority". Only when the perpetrators confront the injuries which their position have caused will this nation ever begin healing. And the perpetrators are still in denial.

[lilypad_567]

271. p.s.

but when i was in middle school, and i was in a dominate middle class white neighborhood, i do notice class ism/racist among the white kids, i wanted to go to a school where there are a lot of low income level people, and a lot of people rent the house or apartment, and i was shock when this white boy made a comment about how he doesn't want to go there because it have a lot of bad people, so he is either racist or classiest, i was even more shock when my arab friend made a comment about the school about where i wanted to go, and this is coming from a person who look arab. no one is opening ly racism, but they do keep it underneath, like some white girls that were very friendly, i guess they were in the popular crownd, will anyways, i once heard them make a comment about how the principal shouldn't allow so many black people in to the school, but than i am also confuse because a lot of people interracial date, like my sister, she is there right now, and a lot of white/black/asian/latino like her. when i went to the low come school, i hardly notice any racism.

[T_i_B]

283. Black pupils told to give seats to whites

I'm glad somebody got this story before me. Thanks.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/08/26/wbus26.xml

A white bus driver in Louisiana has been suspended after she ordered black children to give up their seats to whites.

The case has stirred memories of the Rosa Parks protest of 1955 when a black woman refused to give up her seat to a white man.

The unnamed bus driver in Coushatta, a small farming town in the heart of the rural South near Shreveport, allegedly assigned seats in the back of the bus to black children at the beginning of the school term earlier this month.

When several white children got on the bus this week, the driver sent nine teenage black children to the back where there were not enough seats for them.

[Nikia]

286. I thought that this crap was over a long time ago

The bus driver needs to be punished. The school system should do an investigation into any other adult sponsored racism in the school system. If the school system is uncooperative and doesn't see this as a problem, they should be sued.
Yes, I know racism hasn't gone away. There are laws to protect people against institutional racism though like this incident.

[yasmina27]

292. 14 & 15 y.o.'s go to elementary school?

None of the info I've been able to look at (and I googled for info - did not just read this article) suggest that this bus serviced any school other than the elementary.

As a teacher myself, I can't imagine any school allowing 14-15 y.o.'s in an elementary school. If these students are so far behind in their educational skills, they would be in special classes at the M.S. or H.S. level, not retained at the el.ed. level - at least where I come from.

It seems to me, based on my experience w/ the media, that there are some details sorely lacking here.

[Jamastiene]

293. Just like the "prayer at gunpoint" story

this doesn't shock me. This is what American has regressed to in 2006. Damn shame.

[Irreverend IX]

294. The hell?

From a strictly pragmatic point of view, what the fuck was this guy thinking? Did he not realize that doing something like this would put them and his school in headlines across the country? Did he not think that saying "Coloreds to the back of the bus!" would trigger a tidal wave of condemnation against him? Does being a racist somehow nullify a person's self-preservation instincts? Cause I'd be surprised if Wal-Mart would be willing to hire him to clean toilets after this.