This episode has been both inspiring and depressing in equal measure,
but the students pulled it off:
For the first time ever, students at Wilcox County High School, in Rochelle, Ga. danced together at a prom that wasn’t segregated.
For decades, the school board has avoided officially endorsing prom festivities, instead relying on parents to host and control invitations leading to year after year of two dances — one for white students, and one for the black students.
A fundraising effort by a group of students at the school to hold, at long freaking last, an integrated prom was successful, and Wilcox County High School held its first prom in which the school's white and black students were allowed to freaking mingle last Saturday night.
You may recall that even Republican Georgia governor Nathan Deal was unsupportive of the students' effort, deeming it a local issue he as governor oughtn't dare have a position on. His spokesman was openly dismissive of calls for him to speak out on the Not A Crazy Racist Who Is An Embarrassment to Georgia and a General Stain on Humanity side of things:
“This is a leftist front group for the state Democratic party and we’re not going to lend a hand to their silly publicity stunt.”
A real profile in courage, that one. And true to form, some Wilcox County parents once again sponsored a separate whites-only prom this year, so it seems racism has not been roundly defeated forever 'n ever just yet.
While Antonin Scalia and at least three other justices of the Supreme Court are busy jotting down their very considered arguments as to how racism in America is dead and gone and there's just no reason for silly "racial entitlements" like guarding the right to vote in certain backwater portions of the nation nowadays, a group of high school seniors took it upon themselves to actually make a stand against continued segregation—continued, in freaking April of 2013—and did it. Here's an idea: Scalia and the three others should chip in for a college scholarship for each of them. Each of those students has done considerably more to advance civil rights than Antonin Scalia has in his lifetime. Wouldn't hurt for Scalia to deliver it in person, either, I'm sure a few parents could really educate him on the finer points of "racial entitlements" these days.
