I can't get real excited about proms. They're not high on my list of interests. In fact, they're not on it at all. That might be different if I had kids and grandkids, but I don't.
We didn't have proms at the Christian school I attended. We had an analogy, though -- the "Junior-Senior Banquet." But my being a Boomer, that happened a long time ago, and since then, a lot of time has passed wherein proms were low- or no-interest for me.
I'm so unschooled in proms, I had to do online research to write the prom segment in Sweet Southern Boys. In that story, there is an official school prom, but there are also private prom parties. The one my characters attend was not created to accommodate racial segregation, but to provide an alcohol and drug free event, and to promote abstinence from alcohol and drugs after the event. While this is not stated in the story, it can certainly be inferred by the reader, as the negative effects of alcohol is a theme that recurs in the story.
One of the news reports I read interviewed a white kid who said they wanted their own prom so they could have the music they chose. Thinking back now, I wonder how long it will be before the nanny state mandates that everyone like rap and hip-hop or be labeled and ostracized as wacists and white supweemacists.
In any case, my admittedly cursory research into proms in Georgia leads me to suspect that the number of segregated proms (which are actually private parties, not school sponsored events) is small. The Wikipedia entry on the subject cites no figures, using instead the imprecise terms "many" "some" "few" etc.
Sooooo, the recent furor in the floggosphere about it is just much ado about little, or nothing. They only showcased it to indulge in the misleading flogger practice of finding negative comments made by one, two or an handful of people and then attempting to smear the Virginia Flaggers, the SHPG, the SCV, the UDC, the Southern heritage community and the entire white South with it.
Ho hum.
(Read the prom scene from Sweet Southern Boys here.)
So now Simpson is grudgingly acknowledging that the few Southern heritage folks who made negative comments on a FB thread, a single FB thread, about segregated proms aren't REALLY representative of ALL Southern heritage folks. But then he bellyaches about the rest of us not being outraged enough about it.
ReplyDeleteWhat he means is that we don't slather our outrage all over the Internet enough to suit him.
I swear, he gets more transparent every day.
And speakin' of segregated proms, who among my readers would LOOOOOVE to see pictures of the Gann Academy prom, assuming that they have one?
Why, yes! Gann Academy DOES have a prom! And you can see pics, here: Gann Academy Prom Pics
ReplyDeleteFlogger outrage commencing in 3... 2... 1.... NOT!
It's like I said. SOME segregation is OKAY. SOME inherently unequal separate-but-equal is OKAY....
Those Gann prom pihotos remind me of the title of an old Procol Harum song -- A Whiter Shade of Pale
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't be in Kevin Levin's shoes for anything right now. Once all the white Floggers catch wind of the segregation at the Gann Academy, they will be ruthless going after Levin. The white heterosexual males like Simpson, Mackey, Young, and Hall will instantly and mercilessly call Levin out on the blatant and hateful racism being perpetrated at Gann. They will mock, ridicule, sneer at, and vilify the Gann Academy. Connie, you act as if the white Floggers are no more than a collection of loud- mouthed cheap gutless hacks bullying those they know they can bully. Not at all the case. Mackey is currently taking on the Air Force Academy for its segregationist policies, and he has personally written the Secretary of the Air Force demanding to know why there are no black Thunderbird pilots. Same with Simpson,he is at war with ASU because of the shameful paucity of black professors at ASU, some departments having no blacks at all on faculty. Trust me Connie, these guys are not merely posturing hypocrites, they will aggressively stamp out racism wherever it is found no matter who is perpetrating the racism. Right guys?
ReplyDelete