Class Officers Segregated By Race-Mississippi school divides posts into black, white seats

[kpete]

Source: Smoking Gun

Class Officers Segregated By Race
Mississippi school divides posts into black, white seats

AUGUST 26--Children running for class officer posts at a Mississippi public school are only allowed to compete for certain positions based on their race, according to a memo handed out last week to students.

The Nettleton Middle School elections are divided between offices pegged for black and white students, according to the memo, which was provided to TSG by a parent. The document was handed out to every student in the school’s sixth, seventh, and eighth grades, and it details the race requirements for each of four class officer spots (president, vice president, secretary-treasurer, and reporter).

Of the 12 offices for which students compete, eight are earmarked for white students (including the three class president spots), while four are termed “black” seats. Middle school administrators have not returned TSG phone calls, so it is unclear how this policy was established, or whether the number of offices apportioned for each race changes annually. Additionally, it is unknown how children who are not black or white would run for student government offices.

Students seeking class office were directed to return their election applications, complete with the petition signatures of 10 classmates, to science teacher Jenny Payne by August 24. The Nettleton middle school has about 400 students, and about 72 percent are white, according to a source familiar with the school board's operation. The majority of the remaining students are black.

Read more: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/fail/class-officers-segregated-race#comment-3305

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[Journeyman]

1. Well, it's August 27 -- I wonder how the students reacted to this. . .

On edit, I see the School Superintendent has stepped into the fray and released a statement:

Media Statement
"Student elections have not yet been held at Nettleton Middle School for the
2010-2011 school term. The processes and procedures for student elections
are under review. We are reviewing the origin of these processes,
historical applications, compliance issues, as well as current implications
and ramifications. A statement will be released when review of these
processes is complete."

Thank You

Superintendent
Russell Taylor

We shall see. . .

[KingFlorez]

2. Mississippi never fails to come up with something stupid

Not that anyone should expect anything better, it's backwards state.

[ThomasQED]

19. Oh the irony!

Condemning bigotry against a whole race by showing bigotry against an entire state.

[KingFlorez]

22. Mississippi has a history of being backwards

It's not bigotry to point this out. The state obviously isn't that smart if they vote reliably Republican.

[Recursion]

23. Their House delegation has been majority Dem for over 100 years

So, in other words, no.

[KingFlorez]

26. I was talking about Presidential elections

And Senate elections as well. And a lot of those Democrats elected were Dixiecrats, who were very backward and racist.

[Posteritatis]

33. Be nice if they acted it. (nt)

[ThomasQED]

27. Backing up the bigotry against a whole state

with bigotry against a whole political party.

[KingFlorez]

28. You are using the word bigotry too much

I don't think anyone can deny that the Republican Party is a mess, a state that votes for a bad political party overwhelmingly isn't too bright.

[Lightning Count]

3. Imitating Congress?

Can a white person be in the Black Congressional Caucus?

I'm seriously hoping this is teams and not race.

[Iggo]

8. Oh, stop it.

And welcome to DU!

:hi:

[rocktivity]

4. America already has a black president

How greedy can you get?

:eyes:
rocktivity

[activa8tr]

24. You made me laugh! Thanks!

I love your humor, and this came at the right time, after reading about Sarah Palin, and all sorts of other stupid stuff today.

[RamboLiberal]

5. Wow - amazing this crap still exists & first time anyone called them on it

And what makes it even weirder is the school principal is African-American as ThinkProgress points out. Check it out on the school website.

http://www.nettletonschools.com/schools.cfm?subpage=6336

Is she afraid of making waves in order to keep her job?

[Recursion]

13. Let me tell you a story about my MS high school cheerleading squad.

My town was not as small as Nettleton (maybe twice as big) and is in roughly the same part of the state, though farther east (farther east in Mississippi means more white, for the most part -- my high school was basically 50%/50%, while a place like Issaquena might be 99% black, and have more Vietnamese students than white students).

As I mention downthread, we had two prom kings and homecoming queens (one black one white each), and every year the race of the student body president had to be different than the previous year's.

The quota-ing hadn't really affected athletics, I assume because nobody cared what color the kid crossing into the end zone was as long as he was actually crossing into the end zone for once (my senior year I think we were 2 and 7). So, the teams just went by tryout like normal teams in a non-insane school district. Then one year, all the girls who made the cheerleading squad were white.

Oh my God you would have thought we re-instituded share-cropping. The head of the state NAACP came there and basically camped out in the parking lot drawing a bigger crowd every day, calling (I shit you not) the experience of a middle-class black girl who didn't make the cheerleading squad (and I'm quoting here) "a second Middle Passage. The re-enslavement of our people" .

Finally the cheerleading coach said "fine", kicked some of the white girls off the squad and brought some black girls on to replace them.

Oh my God you would have thought we were Zimbabwe killing white farm owners. Now we had a few hundred pissed off white people in the other parking lot screaming about reverse racism and ending affirmative action and how unfair this all was, comparing the experience of the girls who got kicked off the squad (and here again I'm shitting you not and quoting verbatim) to Jews being sent to ghettos in Poland.

This got so old, that eventually the Superintendant just said "There will be no tryouts. Anyone who wants to be on the squad can be on the squad." (This was rather quickly amended to "any girl who wants to be on the squad can be on the squad" after I and every other guy in school said we would like very much to be on the cheerleading squad.)

So, this was our "spirit cheer squad" that performed at pep rallies and games. It was twice as big as the next to largest cheer squads in the state put together. There was also a "competition" squad to be determined (guess how?) by tryout later in the year once everybody had calmed the hell down.

Then came the varsity jackets. The jackets were given to all the girls on the squad along with a varsity letter just like all the other atheletes got (my stance on cheerleading as a sport: if I would break my leg doing it, it's a sport). But they're a different color than the other sports. Cue the shitstorm again. People are calling the differently-colored letter "S" the "yellow star of David being put on our clothes".

The end result was that we had a squad too big and inexperienced to every practice any actual cheerleading/gymnastics elements and basically resigned to doing "we've got spirit yes we do we've got spirit how about you?" to the crowd.

Now, this was a cheerleading squad. But people acted like this was a life-and-death issue we were facing. They sat-in on the parking lot. They filled the state paper's letters to the editor page (there's basically one daily in Mississippi with national and international coverage, the Jackson Clarion-Ledger; there's also the Memphis Commercial Appeal and the NO Times-Picayune but they usually don't run LTTEs about Mississippi stuff). They called in to all the local radio shows. Constantly. They put up signs in their yard. They defaced signs in other yards. This was the shit they did over a cheerleading squad.

Sometimes an unofficial segregation within one building is the best you can hope for.

[Occulus]

17. "Sometimes an unofficial segregation within one building is the best you can hope for."

:wow:

I don't really have anything polite to say to that...

[Recursion]

21. What about it makes you want to be rude? NT

[Dappleganger]

29. I find it shocking as well.

My mother grew up in Sledge, btw. I know how the whites there (MY relatives) can be, even though they were poorer than cockroaches. A lot of times people live out their racist fantasies via sports and other competition. Racial segregation, even as you described, is NOT acceptable as a means of placating the masses. Just because it calms down the crowd a bit does not mean it is the best choice for anyone. Quite frankly, I'm shocked that someone on this board would say it was a good choice.

[Recursion]

30. Except it's segregation without the "separate" part

We all went to the same school. We all received the same education.

[Recursion]

31. And who said it was a "good choice"?

I'm looking up the thread and I don't see that anywhere. Are you talking about when I said it's sometimes "the best you can hope for"? Does that mean "a good choice" to you?

[classysassy]

34. A backward state,with the mind of a child ( Mentally handicapped)

child.

[Recursion]

35. Mississippi is the only place I've ever lived where there is actual racial integration

The. Only. Place.

It brings problems, like the ones I described.

But I get sick of people who live in self-segregated cities and suburbs talking shit about how racist Mississippi is.

[entanglement]

38. Not really clear if you consider integration the problem or racists the problem

Hope it isn't the former. I do agree there are many (I mean MANY) hypocrites who condemn the South for its racism while being guilty of practicing its (equally evil) Northern variety.

[Recursion]

41. I said "it brings problems" not "it is a problem"

Actual racial integration is hard. That's why it's almost never found in the USA.

[ThomasQED]

36. Classy,

Sassy!

[JoeyT]

39. It does put it in perspective when you come from a similar place.

I went to elementary and middle school in Biloxi and St. Martin.
My first thought when I read this story was "This sounds an awful lot like a well-intentioned and very badly executed effort by a white person to not look like anyone is being excluded."

A system probably put into place because he/she felt that it was unfair that minorities were never elected because 72% of the kids weren't going to vote for them no matter what.

Edited to add: Of course it doesn't help that I misread it the first time through. Didn't realize only white kids were allowed to be president. Somehow I read it as being two of each office, one of each race.

[HooptieWagon]

6. Now THAT'S a school with a lot of cash reserves to settle law suits... nt

[activa8tr]

25. Like so many public schools in America, so awash with extra cash ...

I know I know.... your comment was sarcasm.
And very GOOD sarcasm at that!

Thanks for the chuckles.
:)

[Iggo]

7. Oooo-oooo--ooooh, SHIT!

Wow!

Wow-wee-wow!

I mean....WOW!

[alp227]

9. So how would Drake (actor, rapper) or Barack Obama be classified under this system?

Would the school use the archaic term mulatto? Or "other"? :shrug:

(If you're not familiar with Drake, Drake is a Canadian actor and rapper who is of African-American and Jewish descent. Drake starred in the TV show Degrassi: The Next Generation and released his debut album Thank Me Later this year. Last year, he had top 10 hits in the US with "Best I Ever Had" and "Forever", the latter of which was featured in the LeBron James documentary More Than a Game and featured Kanye West, Lil Wayne, and Eminem. "Miss Me" and "Find Your Love" also were hits this year and are some cool songs.)

Regarding this issue this is more BS from the backasswards state of Mississippi. The same state that ratified the 13th Amendment in 1995 and the 19th in 1984. Where lesbians and disabled can't attend prom, and a lesbian wearing a tux gets censored from yearbook.

I looked on Google Maps. The town of this middle school is nearby Fulton, the home of the bigoted high school that excluded Constance McMillen from prom. And near Tupelo, home of the rabidly anti-gay fundamentalist group American Family Association.

[Recursion]

16. In my experience (I grew up in MS), it depends. Have you heard the term "passing"?

Basically, biracial (or multiracial) people who could "pass" were "white". Those who couldn't, were "black". Passing basically just means convincing everyone you were white; it includes skin tone, facial features, hair, accent, and just about anything else that gives someone a clue to what your race is.

So, President Obama would probably be "black". Drake looks like he might could pass.

[Recursion]

10. My high school in northeast Mississippi did this

Though every year they would rotate which race got which position. East asians were for this purpose considered white, south asians were considered black (yes, we had east asians and south asians in a small Mississippi town).

We also had two homecoming queens and two prom kings every year. AFAIK it was never actually specified that one had to be black and the other white, but that was pretty clearly the purpose, and it always worked out that way (the school was about 48% black and 48% white, so the top two vote-getters were generally one black kid and one white kid).

Segregation in a single building. But, the alternative might have been worse.

[Lightning Count]

11. Ah, I get it now. It's so it's not all White every time.

Now at least it makes a little sense.

[Recursion]

14. See my story upthread about the cheerleading squad

The racial balance was so nearly even that any winner-take-all sort of election left half of the school feeling deeply bitter.

[CanonRay]

12. Seperate but equal?

I guess they didn't get the memo in 1954!!!!!

[Posteritatis]

18. Not much equality when five of the six pres/vp spots are whites-only. (nt)

[LiberalFighter]

15. The whole school administration needs to be fired and black-balled.

Personally, they should just eliminate the class officers. They don't serve any useful purpose.

[No Elephants]

20. The school is 72% white. If the kids vote along race lines, all officeholders would be white.

Not saying the kids would vote along racial lines. Just saying the intent of this is not necessarily exclusionary. Maybe the intent is to make sure African Americans hold at least one office per class.

Wrong way to go about it, no matter what the intent is, though.

[HooptieWagon]

32. My high school was 99% white, and elected a black homecoming queen. n/t

[MountainLaurel]

37. What happens if you're biracial?

Can you run for either slot, or does the one-drop rule apply? And what's their definition of white? Do they use the Klan version of anyone who isn't a northern European Protestant, or do they include Italians these days? And how about kids who don't fall into either category: Are they just fucked?

[JoeyT]

40. A lot of this depends on the intent.

A school in the rural south with 72% white students would NEVER have any minorities elected to anything. It's quite possible some authority figure decided that's unfair. Which it is unfair, but I haven't the foggiest idea of how to correct it. This certainly isn't a good way to do it, but I have no idea what would be a good way. Other than getting rid of class officers altogether.

Edited to add:
And I just reread it and realized what the problem was. Yeesh. Somehow I misread it as saying there were black/white versions of each office instead of ONLY white kids for president. As in a black/white president, black/white vice-president, etc. Ok, that makes a huge difference. Reading comprehension fail on my part.

The way I misread it it could have been well meaning and unintentionally racist while trying to be inclusive. The way it actually is is out and out racist.