Want to be class president? Not if you're black, in one Miss. school

[zabet]

Want to be class president? Not if you're black, in one Miss. school
Mother moves her family after learning about segregation in class elections

If you’re black and a student at one public middle school in Mississippi, you can’t run for president – only whites need apply.



Nettleton Middle School in Nettleton, Miss., has segregated its elected class positions by race, according to a memo sent home with children at the school last week that was obtained by NBC News.

MEMO HERE: http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/NettletonClassRaces.pdf

The memo was first brought to light when Brandy Springer, a mother of four children, contacted blogger Suzy Richardson, founder and editor of the blog mixedandhappy.com. It was also reported by Gawker.

“My daughter came home from school telling me that she wanted to try out for the school reporter, but it is only open to black students,” Springer wrote Richardson. “They told her ‘she should run for class president, that was open to only white students.'”

MORE HERE: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38880820/ns/us_news-life/

:nuke:

[stuntcat]

1. this is so f'ed up

Shame.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

2. A rather childish interpretation

It's an affirmative action thing, not an exclusion thing.

It is wrong-headed and gross and terrible.

It is disgusting.

It is not, however, a ploy to keep down the black kids.

(It is like national constitutions that manate power-sharing, as in the president will always be christian and the prime minister will always be a muslim.)

[Raineyb]

4. Then why can only white kids run for president?

Not a ploy?

I think you are very, very, wrong.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

5. ...

The school is 25% black. The vice president is limited to black students. The president is limited to white students, and so on through the various offices.

It is deeply disgusting, but the point is to ensure a certain level of black representation in student government.

It's craziness. It is wrong.

But it is not what people seem to want to read it as.

[scheming daemons]

8. Theoretically, Obama's kids could run for any office in this school... right?

...

[Raineyb]

10. And the top spot goes to the white students in every grade why?

You think this doesn't send a message?

It is what people are reading into it.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

15. Because they are the vast majority of the student body

Of course this sends a bad message. It is hopelessly fucked up. But the principal is black and 50% of the school board is black.

It is a school trying to *increase* the number of black electees by mandate.

If students voted very racially (sad, but possible) you could have had a school that was 25% black that never elected any black student to student government.

To repair that in this way is gross.

But not envisioned as a scheme to exclude back participation in student government.

[KamaAina]

12. Only in the eighth grade, for some reason

in sixth and seventh grade, blacks are assigned only a lower-tier office.

[Riftaxe]

17. I read into this disgusting policy that

If a child is black he cannot run for class president, and he is prevented from running for president based upon.....race.

Spin it anyway you want, that is what the policy says, excluding people from student government based solely upon their race.

[damntexdem]

16. Bullshit! It allows only white students to run for president and other offices by rotation.

This is racist, discriminatory, and is explicitly an exclusion thing.

And our national constitution DOES NOT mandate such power-sharing. In fact, this discriminatory policy is illegal under U.S. law.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

26. And only allows black students to run for other offices...

why not read before popping off?

It is a method to increase black representation in student government.

It is also ridiculous and grotesque and exactly the wrong sort of thing to be teaching children.

I am not defending the thing in any way except against the narrow charge, based on knee-jerk assumption, that this monstrous scheme is promulgated to disadvantage black students when it is actually promulgated to do the opposite.

It is a terrible thing.

[Pab Sungenis]

30. Then they should have a requirement that Pres./VP run as teams

and must be of different races. This way, a black kid has a theoretical equal shot at the top spot. Or top vote getter is President and the runner up of a different race is Vice-President.

[TalkingDog]

34. What? And be flexible? OMG! NOOOOOO..... n/t

[TheKentuckian]

24. Not in America. We don't do racial, sexual, or religious testing. No black kids being eligible for

President is keeping them down. You don't get to pull in wholly different forms of governments to justify this.

If this is a public school then heads should roll and civil rights suits should fly. In fact whoever decided on this should be criminally prosecuted for civil rights violations.

This ain't Iraq.

[bluestateguy]

3. Do they do this becuase they assume white students won't vote for a black candidate?

Racism tends to diminish the younger down the generational ladder you go.

Didn't Ole Miss have a black student body president a few years back?

[scheming daemons]

6. This is life in the deep south...... but we're not allowed to criticize the south here

....

[azureblue]

9. No, not when you

are prejudiced against the South, when you stereotype the South and Southerners, and when you think all white Southerners are alike.
And when you make stupid posts like you did.

[Kalyke]

13. Agreed.

Of course, if the poster who wants to criticize does so, I'll simply start posting links to Northern race riots or racial issues - they still have 'em, too.

P.S. The White Guy in his avatar is from the South. :rofl:

[damntexdem]

21. There's plenty of racism in both North and South.

And it is explicitly outlined in school policy in the specific case.

[azureblue]

7. this is a clumsy attempt

by a four person school board, of which two are black, to try to comply with a court order to level the playing field in a majority white school. Apparently the board could not figure out another way to make sure a set number of blacks would be elected to school office, and they came up with this, for better or worse.

[immoderate]

22. They should find another way to spread the "power."

Maybe a student council or parliament. Rotate positions.

--imm

[damntexdem]

25. It doesn't matter who did it, it is still racist.

The intentions don't matter, it remains explicitly racist.

A court order is needed to bar the school from conducting elections in this manner.

[KamaAina]

11. So I guess any Hispanic or Asian kids there are SOL

:eyes:

[LynneSin]

14. What if you have one black parent and one white parent

:crazy:

[Riftaxe]

23. Obviously they will have to go by Blood Quantum rules...

:puke:

[stuntcat]

29. right? or Native Americans.

:eyes:

[Bluebear]

18. Also, the Korean exchange student is SOL. nt

[Liberal_in_LA]

19. unbelievable

[LynneSin]

20. I think there is some lame attempt to ensure children of all races get offices

Especially if the school is split 75/25 in favor of white children.

The fact that no black child can be president is pretty lame. I guess if there was one more grade level in the school that grade could have a black president, but there isn't.

I mean how do you ensure racial equality in a school where one race outnumbers the other race and oh, this is the deep south some there is probably some inherit racism in some of those children. Obviously this is not a solution for the school, but who knows what else could be done. Perhaps banish all school positions or better yet just election 4 children to the student council and let them take turns holding the various positions.

[onpatrol98]

27. Is supposed to rotate each year...

I think this is a misguided attempt to rotate race each year. So, next year, EVERY POSITION would flip. During the next school year, the President would have to be black and the VP would have to be white.

To be honest, it's really political correctness that's killing them. They should just leave it up the kids. Even down south, it's not unusual to see minorities win top spots. They just thought they were being "smart" by enforcing some nutty little rotations schedule.

They didn't realize how it would look "out of context". Even in context...it's just plain stupid.

[KamaAina]

28. This might be a perfect opportunity to try out new ways of voting

like instant runoff, so as to avoid "the white candidate vs. the black candidate".

edit: or try this on: run slates of candidates for the four offices, with the proviso that each slate must include one black and one white candidate.

[OHdem10]

31. More proof of how some people cannot accept a black President

of the USA.

[revolution breeze]

32. Demographics of Nettleton

"As of the census of 2000, there were 1,932 people, 794 households, and 546 families residing in the town. The population density was 714.8 people per square mile (276.3/km²). There were 868 housing units at an average density of 321.1/sq mi (124.1/km²). The racial makeup of the town was 66.56% White, 32.51% African American, 0.10% Native American, 0.36% Asian, 0.16% from other races, and 0.31% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.36% of the population." This is pretty consistent for the northeast part of the state. Many schools in Mississippi (not making any excuses) set the standards because with a ratio of almost 2:1 Caucasion v. African American, it encouraged African American children to run for office. Most schools rotated it every other year (so class vice president usually became president the following year). Even in the 1980's, high schools would have one Causcasian homecoming maid and one African American from each class.

[Nye Bevan]

33. Just how black does a kid have to be to be ineligible

to be President? More than 50%? Or is this a "one drop of blood" type of rule?

This policy is shocking and disgusting.