Has the country gone mad?
With the recent instances of crime, corruption, and blatant racism I’m left wondering indeed, whether the United States of America has gone completely mad.
Now in addition to all of that, there are other things to add to the list of “madness” including extreme educational methods and insensitive pranks.
Let’s consider the latter first.
By now we’re all familiar with the Jena Six, the Black males who are criminal defendants in the town of Jena, La. who stand accused of beating a white student into unconsciousness. Reports surfaced last week of photos and a video posted on Facebook that displayed white Louisiana college students dressed in blackface and reenacting the Jena Six assault.
The photos and video were taken late last month on the bank of the Red River where the University of Louisiana at Monroe students acted out the racial attack. Kristy Smith, a white freshman at the university posted the items on her Facebook site and titled it “The Jena Six on the River.” The video consisted of three students who smeared mud on their faces and bodies stomping a forth student. One male participant was heard saying “Niggers put the noose on.”
After students complained about the photos and video on Smith’s page, she removed the items and programmed her page to private to censor the viewers. Though Smith has made no public comments to members of the media, she apologized for the images on several Facebook postings.
“We were just playing in the mud and it got out of hand,” she wrote. “I promise I’m not a racist. I have as many Black friends as I do white and I love them to death.”
While Smith described the participants’ actions as “just playing,” it was really anything but. There’s nothing humorous about pretending to be Black, using the word Nigger, nor beating a student – regardless of their race. What makes the act even more despicable, further proves the audacious temperament of this country is that the materials were posted on a public Web site for the world to see.
Another incident centered on the Jena Six circumstance came from an elementary school located on the campus of Grambling State University.
Pictures were posted on the historically Black college’s website that featured a female student at Alma J. Brown Elementary looking confused and frightened. The Black child was in a school uniform being hoisted up with a noose around her neck.
The sick part of this all is that the child was taking part in a lesson related to events surrounding the Jena Six and the woman holding the student up was actually her grandmother, Irene Booker.
The Gramblinite’s Web site included a comment from Booker that stated, “Yes it was a rope around the little girl’s neck. It was a (safe) demonstration as to what the rope symbolized to Blacks. This is my granddaughter and she along with so many of the other students did not understand the intimidation of the noose. I held her in my arms and she knows that I would not harm her or put her life in danger. In order to understand racism one must experience it to make the connection.”
My question to Booker is, do we all need to be beaten with whips to understand the racism of the 18th and 19th centuries?
While the point Booker was trying to prove with her actions may be understood, to subject a child who was visibly scared to such a traumatic demonstration is not only cruel, but also a incredibly extreme. Booker’s form of education could quite possibly have long-term negative effects on her granddaughter and/or some of the other students who witnessed the demonstration.
The same point could have been illustrated through photographs of past victims, and even that should have been done with acute discretion.
