Anyone from the Deep South? I am gobsmacked at this story

[welliemum]

here

Is is really like this?

Can you really have a tree in a school playground that is "traditionally reserved for white students"?

I am absolutely chilled to the bone.

America still has terrible segregation, not just in the South. Speaking as part of a mixed race family, I can tell you, its not always a comfortable place to visit.

Well, I feel as if I've been really naive - I knew there was racism in the US but while reading that article, I had to stop and check that I was really reading about a current story because it sounded like the 1960s.

It's a disaster waiting to happen.

What was the problem when you visited LoveAngel?

This sort of thing is really very anymore in the South. It happens only in the most backward of places, its not like this in the majority of places. Most people think the KKK is a joke and it is full of the most uneducated morons you can imagine.

So no its not really like that.

I'm glad to hear that it's only a few places, PPB.

It's interesting that the US seems to have the best and worst of equality, depending on where you go.

What they're describing in the article is only a hair away from apartheid though - one law for whites and another for blacks, very worrying.

Yes, the entire country of 300m+ people is just like that.

And everyone in England lives in a thatched cottage and drinks tea and eats scones with clotted cream at 4PM every afternoon.

Jesus this is insane! how are they getting away with this?

Mind you is it any different to the constant pestering of young Muslim men wherever they go?

There was a thread day before yesterday about a 12-year-old Indian boy now on life support after being severely beaten by several white youths - because he was Indian.

Right here in England.

Er, expat, I am not extrapolating a story about one town to an entire country.

No need to be defensive.

Yes Expat, that was a far far worse thing to happen, it really did make me feel sick to read it.

Shadows of Nazi Germany.

Don't be silly, brighton is not Deep South.

That would be Cornwall

Really, then why ask a question like 'Is is really like this? ' when you already know it's not.

I mean, I read stories about race hate crimes in the UK often enough. It wouldn't occur to me to assume the entire country is like that.

Yes, there's racism everywhere. But my point is that the racism in that town is not down to a few loonies, it's involving everyone from schoolchildren to the legal system. That's what is so scary about it.

I grew up in the South, Houston, TX.

You won't find a more ethnically diverse city in the UK than Houston outside London.

I'm not white, either.

So of course it's silly to generalise about an entire region based on one incident.

Racism does exist there - just as it does everywhere else, unfortunately.

(Ah but Expat, you are in the Uk, and to me and probably a lot of other people, the Deep South of America might as well be Jupiter! I've never been, will probably never be able to go, and so don't know what it's like, or what the laws are or anything!)

I'm far Deeper South than anyone, so ner. (NZ)

I posted because I wanted to know if this article was reflecting a) a common situation in small-town Southern US, or b) a one-off, freak town.

I knew racism was a concern in the South, but this was beyond what I'd ever come across before.

Expat, are you confusing me with someone else? I'm not making the assumptions you think I am.

This is a shocking story, and I wonder how accurate. It probably took one white supremacist teenager to pull this off. Yet, people are extrapolating that the whole town let alone the deep south might be like this generally.

You do find the of white supremecist. He/she is generally not very well liked by the masses of white people. But, hanginf ropes from the tree to remind them of days gone by is most certainly bang out of order and the black community has every right to take offense.

PS Texas is not the "deep" south. We are talking Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi.

PPS Expat, you are very funny. Love your first post on this thread.

Eleusis, I think the article is saying that it is the whole town. That's (as I read it) the point of the article.

Everywhere you go without exception, you will find racists. But this article is describing something very disturbing, a place where racist incidents are occurring and the authorities are openly complicit.

I am judging from this part of the article:

"Most whites in Jena dismissed it as a tasteless prank, but the minority black community identified the gesture as something far more vicious. "

So, I gather the white people weren't impressed but brushed it off. But, the black people took offense, as indeed I would expect them too. But, it probably only tool one person to organise the nooses.

It would be interesteing to know what school did about it? Did they look the other way, or did they come out and with a statement telling everyone that the prank was offensive and unacceptable.

I really should lean whe to use . and when to use ? Apologies for me appauling punctuation.

And spelling! appalling