I find myself shaking my head at the comments proclaiming that blacks would be free from all vestiges of racism if we would simply get over our nasty habit of separating ourselves in places like BlackVoices.com, BET, the NAACP and so on.To those complaining, many times asking, "What if there were a White Voices?" Black Voices is what segregation looks like.
So, I certainly hope our readers who think this way (you know who you are) will spearhead a letter-writing or call-in campaign to Montgomery County, Ga., where a very disturbing type of real-world segregation is going on. ...
You see, the white students there hold a "whites only" high school prom that black students are not allowed to attend. This year, in 2009, and for many decades past, this has been the tradition.
In response, the following night, black students hold their own prom to which everyone is invited. Few, if any, white students show up, though. Because if they did, those white kids would be defying their parents.
An article in the New York Times lays it all out:
Students of both races say that interracial friendships are common at Montgomery County High School. Black and white students also date one another, though often out of sight of judgmental parents. "Most of the students do want to have a prom together," says Terra Fountain, a white 18-year-old who graduated from Montgomery County High School last year and is now living with her black boyfriend. "But it's the white parents who say no. They're like, if you're going with the black people, I'm not going to pay for it."Source: New York Times, In Georgia, Segregation Endures on Prom Night
"It's awkward," acknowledges JonPaul Edge, a senior who is white. "I have as many black friends as I do white friends. We do everything else together. We hang out. We play sports together. We go to class together. I don't think anybody at our school is racist." Trying to explain the continued existence of segregated proms, Edge falls back on the same reasoning offered by a number of white students and their parents. "It's how it's always been," he says. "It's just a tradition."
What saddened me most when I read about Montgomery County High School was the fact that somehow the white and black kids feel powerless to change the racial situation they face.
I don't know what U.S. high school students are learning in civics classes these days, but if they don't recognize the fundamental power they have in shaping the destiny of our country, then our democratic future is very gloomy.
There's more:
When the actor Morgan Freeman offered to pay for last year's first-of-its-kind integrated prom at Charleston High School in Mississippi, his home state, the idea was quickly embraced by students -- and rejected by a group of white parents, who held a competing "private" prom. (The effort is the subject of a documentary, 'Prom Night in Mississippi,' which will air on HBO in July.)More Discussion in Community
+ Segregated Prom '09
+ Segregated Proms, What Planet Am I On?
+ Go to Prom, Get Suspended
Vintage Racist Advertising
Top left LOS ANGELES - DECEMBER 1: Brigitte Nielsen and Flavor Flav present onstage at the VH1 - Big in '04 on December 1, 2004 at the Shrine Auditorium, in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images) Top right: 1899 -- Uncle Tom's Cabin: Topsy Illustration --- Image by © CORBIS; Bottom right: 1930s AC spark plugs ad in The Saturday Evening Post -- Photo by The Authentic History Center; Bottom left: This cartoon image provided by the New York Post appeared in the Post's Page Six Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2009. The cartoon, which refers to Travis the chimp, who was shot to death by police in Stamford, Conn. on Monday after it mauled a friend of its owner, drew criticism Wednesday on media Web sites and from civil rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton. (AP Photo/New York Post) ** NO SALES ** Credit: Getty Images / Corbi / Authentic History Center / AP
Getty Images / Corbi / Authentic History Center / AP
Advertisement for an African-American slave sale.
Although the enslavement of mankind in general has been recorded as early as 1200 BC; the first African slaves were reportedly transported to the 'New World' in 1517. This is 76 years after the first black slaves were captured and taken to Portugal.
Bettmann / Corbis
African American Stereotypes: Products and Advertising c.1880s Tin of Nigger Hair Tobacco
For decades this product was sold in stores as chewing tobacco or for smoking. It was advertised as 'pure, unadulterated, fine old burley leaf.'
Photo Source: The Authentic History Center
The Authentic History Center
1888 -- Seal of North Carolina Tobacco - The Darktown Bowling Club Poster -- Image by © Swim Ink 2, LLC/CORBIS Seal of North Carolina Tobacco - The Darktown Bowling Club Poster
Swim Ink 2, LLC / Corbis
ca. 1890 -- Zoulou Powder Poster (French advertisement)
Because offensive advertising was permeated throughout the world for many years, (and still is, as you will see in a few upcoming slides) it should come as no surprise that in more modern times 'racism has become the scourge of European soccer stadiums.'
Swim Ink 2, LLC / Corbis
ca. 1899 --- Uncle Tom's Cabin: Topsy Illustration --- Image by © CORBIS Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Topsy was a stereotypical pickaninny character in the book, 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.' Uncle Tom was a slave in the book. The term 'Uncle Tom' is recognized to be offensive and a derogatory name for a black man who is abjectly servile and deferential to whites.
Corbis
ca. 1899 --- George Thatcher's Greatest Minstrels Poster --- Image by © CORBIS George Thatcher's Greatest Minstrels Poster
Early definition of minstrel: a medieval poet and musician who sang or recited while accompanying himself on a stringed instrument, either as a member of a noble household or as an itinerant troubadour.
The black-face minstrel act was a very popular form of entertainment in 19th-century America. White audiences were receptive to the portrayals of Blacks as singing, dancing, grinning fools. T.D. 'Daddy' Rice, the original Jim Crow, became rich and famous because of his skills as a minstrel. Interestingly though, when he died in New York on September 19, 1860, he was broke.
Corbis
African American Stereotypes: Products and Advertising 1899 Durkee's Salad Dressing advertisement, Harpers Magazine
Notice the broken English purportedly spoken by black Americans, 'We're gwine ter live high ter-night ...'
Photo Source: The Authentic History Centerr
The Authentic History Center
Advertisement for Clarence Brooks and Co.'s Fine Coach Varnishes uses racist stereotypes to depict a group of African-American adults and children as they cheer and watch two shirtless boxers, one of whom appears unconscious, accompanied by the text "the Championship Fight, Sullivan Wins," late 1800s. The Sullivan in the text is a reference to boxer John L. Sullivan, who fought bare-knuckled in several famous bouts.
Transcendental Graphics, Getty Images
Advertisement for the St. Louis Beef Canning Company features an illustration of a stereotyped African-American character sitting on a can of beef, accompanied by phonetically rendered, stereotypical dialect-style text that reads: 'No Sah! dont jine no Exodus so as dis Beef lasts,' late 1800s.
Showing blacks to massacre the English language, further perpetuated the false idea that African Americans were somehow unable to be educated.
Transcendental Graphics, Getty Images
Comments: (3551)
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By: kcn9971 on 5/26/2009 1:42PM
Ms. Dixon, do you expect a rational thinking person to believe, that in this day and age of The NAACP...ACLU...The ANTI DEFAMATION LEAGUE...more than 200,000 Civil Rights Attorneys...and a Black Attorney General, that White People would dare have a "WHITES ONLY" prom? It's obvious that you edited your post to create a racist "spin". The truth is, the Black students were not "FORCED" to have their own prom, this was something that the Black students and their Parents embraced. To futher prove your disingenuous report, your own photos you have posted shows the Black students happy and having fun(noboby seems angry or depressed) with a White girl, who is obviously there of her own free will.
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By: moderate on 5/26/2009 2:06PM
this is not the first nor i hope the lat time i read about this discrimination. You are wrong and part of the problem kcn. This is the worst example of segregation and discrimination. The graduates do not want a seperate prom but the bigoted parents in the south do. They should be ashamed
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By: Anne on 5/26/2009 2:21PM
Maybe you should read the article again. First of all, Ms. Dixon does not say that the black kids are "FORCED" to have their own prom, but that they have a prom that EVERYONE (including white students) can attend because they (the black students) are barred from attending the "Whites only" prom. Second of all, she says that students would like to have one integrated prom, but the white parents are the ones that push for segregation. Thirdly, the picture that she posts probably is not of the black prom referenced in the article, but a stock photo.
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By: Jessica on 5/26/2009 2:23PM
kcn9971 I grew up in Georgia and graduated a few years ago, and Ms Dixon is in fact telling the truth. Whether it is forced on kids or welcomed by them, there are many instances where there is still segregation in southern schools.
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By: glen on 5/26/2009 3:47PM
I lived (recently) in the North with Black neighborhoods, Italian Neighborhoods, Irish Neighborhoods, Puerto Rican Neighborhoods, Polish Neighborhoods, Jewish Neighborhoods, Ad nauseum, and they complained that the South was segregated??? Blah, Blah, Blah.
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By: Nick on 5/26/2009 3:52PM
Let's back off of Ms. Dixon. I don't believe she is advocating any of this behavior. In this article, she has gone so far as to let blacks know that they continue to segregate themselves from whites. I have lived in the north and the south, and to be quite honest in metropolitan areas I feel more racial animosity in the north. There is way too much finger pointing in this world. Comments are being made by people about shopping at "black stores", and let's not forget about "black radio" and "black television" or "black societies". What do you think rock radio, American Eagle, Hollister, Speed TV and golf country clubs are to blacks?
The only reason I directed this to you specifically is due to you calling out the journalist, not because I have a bone to pick directly with you. Blacks and whites are ALL guilty of maintaining a level of segregation. It's part of what is wrong with our society as a whole, but it's also the thing that lets us remember who we are. I don't agree with "whites only" proms, but it's not our job to bitch about it on a faceless website; it's the duty of the students and residents of those areas to crawl out of their caves and into the light of the 21st century.
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By: KT1984 on 5/26/2009 4:00PM
I have many things to say. First of all I am not recist towards just ONE COLOR of people but to ALL including WHITES. And I believe that what Roslyn said above is mostly true. As a white mother of a young child I have had a very hard time getting help from the state because I was not BLACK OR LATINO. My mother worked for the county and she was told by fellow co-workers from another department that they were told by their supervisor that if the people came in looking for cash assistance or food stamps and they were BLACK OR LATINO just give it to them no questions asked but if they were WHITE to have them jump thru hoops to try and get approved for it. And my second thing is BLACK HISTORY MONTH started as BLACK HISTORY WEEK and after a few years was supposed to just be written into our history books at school and drop the week since we'd be learning about it in school on a daily basis anyways. But it turned into a whole month DEVOTED TO BLACK HISTORY but there's no WHITE HISTORY MONTH OR JEWISH HISTORY MONTH and they were killed just because they weren't up to Hitler's standards of what he believed people should be. So black people shouldn't have things devoted just to them if they want to pull the racial card so all people have EQUAL RIGHTS like Martin Luther King wanted!!
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By: gd on 5/26/2009 4:17PM
There are many Blacks Only Proms across the country, as well as Black Universities, Black Beauty Pagents, Black Fraternities & Soroities etc, ad infinitum
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By: Zach on 7/23/2009 6:41PM
KCN you are an idiot. You say the blacks weren't forced to have their own prom? If they didn't have their own, they would have none! Of course the white girl is at the black prom. The black prom allows whites to come! The white prom does not allow blacks to come! The white girl's parents probably aren't ignorant like you. You disgust me.
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By: JDDEGRA on 5/26/2009 2:12PM
IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO---APPARENTLY BOTH SIDES WANTED A SEGREGATED PROM--WHY MAKE A HUGE RACIAL ISSUE OUT OF IT--
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