Community Chat

[Marp2]

THE GOOD

For the first time in their school's history, black and white students at a Georgia high school attended prom together over the weekend.

Saturday's integrated bash occurred after a four students at Wilcox County High School in Rochelle, two who are black and two who are white, spearheaded an effort to allow every senior at the school to celebrate the teenage rite of passage together.

For decades, students at the school attended two proms — one for white students and one for black students.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/high-schoolers-celebrate-racially-integrated-prom-article-...

THE BAD IS UGLY

Georgia Governor Nathan Deal recently took a rather quixotic stance to take on the issue of segregation in the year 2013. The group Better Georgia recently asked Deal if he publicly supported efforts by Wilcox County High School students to achieved a racially integrated prom. Deal's spokesperson, Brian Robinson, had quite the response. In an e-mail he said, "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."

Wilcox County High School was desegregated 30 years ago, but ever since then has had separate proms for white and African American students to this day. The practice has continued because the proms are privately funded. If the school funded racially segregated proms, it would be probably be stopped immediately. But since segregation is usually thought of as a bad thing in the year 2013, that makes Governor Deal's refusal to even comment on efforts at integration more puzzling.

The group Better Georgia asked several state officials, both Republicans and Democratic, to express support for the efforts for an integrated prom. Politicians on both sides of the aisle have expressed their support such as State Representative Edward Lindsey, a Republican, the State House majority whip, Republican Representative Buzz Brockway, and State Senator Steve Henson, a Democrat and Senate minority leader.

Governor Deal’s opposition appears to be rooted in the fact that Better Georgia asked. Better Georgia describes itself as a group that will "advocate progressive solutions to the problems facing Georgia." Even though Deal may disagree with many of the issues and solutions the group proposes, joining the group to bipartisianly denounce, (not even act! Just denounce) an obviously racist and archaic tradition was apparently a bridge too far.

http://www.policymic.com/articles/34767/segregated-prom-georgia-gov-nathan-deal-refuses-to-comment-b...