After Jena protest, Nooses Found at NorthCarolina School

School Officials Found Two Nooses on a Tree,

One in the Bus Parking Lot

and One on the Flagpole

A day after civil rights figures led a massive protest in Jena, La., where racial tensions flared after nooses were hung from a tree outside Jena High School, more nooses were found on a tree outside another southeastern high school.

A total of four nooses were found Friday around the campus of Andrews High School in High Point, N.C., police said.

Two nooses were hung on a tree in front of the school, one was in a bus loop near the upperclassmen's parking lot, and one red noose was tied to the top of the school flagpole, High Point Police Capt. Margaret Erga said, citing a police report.

Erga said school administrators discovered the nooses around 8:30 a.m. and immediately notified authorities, who officially filed the report at 10:41 Friday morning.

Extra police officers were brought to the campus and security was in force at Andrews High School for the remainder of the day....

This from ABC News.

School Apologizes After Banning Reporter from Game

A Clark County School is apologizing to the local newspaper Monday after banning one of its reporters at the Homecoming game.

The Winchester Sun says the Principal at George Roger's Clark High School would not allow a reporter in the press box because he didn't like an article the newspaper ran that day.

That story was about four white students, at George Roger's Clark, who gave a black student a racially charged note, according to Ronda Hopewell, the mother of the student who received the note. The note depicts a white person whipping a black person, it also shows a noose and includes racial statements like "the south will rise again." The banned journalist says reporting the news is their job and the action Principal Gordon Parido took was shocking.

"I get a phone call saying, you're banned from the press box tonight and I said you're kidding right? He said no Mr. Parido doesn't want you to be in the press box," [sports editor Keith] Taylor explained.

"I said why? and I was told well the story in the paper, he didn't like it very well," Taylor said.
Since banning the reporter the paper says Parido has called to apologize. While relations seem to be smooth again between the school and the newspaper, Hopewell says she is still dissatisfied with the school district's response to the incident.

This from WTVQ.

George Rogers Clark student receives racial note

A 16-year-old black student at George Rogers Clark High School says he received a threatening, racially-charged note at school two weeks ago, and four white students were arrested Wednesday, charged with terroristic threatening in the incident, according to one of their mothers.

Ronda Hopewell, the mother of the black student, Deonte Skinner, says she is shocked something like that would happen in 2007.

“I can’t believe there is still prejudice around here,” Hopewell said. “I saw on the news where a student got a threatening letter, but here in Winchester? I couldn’t believe that.”

In the note were two crude drawings that depicted someone, possibly Deonte, being whipped and lynched, an image of the Confederate flag, and a scribble that his mother says is his grave.
The note also includes the phrases “The south will rize again” and “I had a dream white power.”
But Lois Cotton, mother of one of the boys charged with the crime, said her son was arrested over a drawing that was altered. She said all four boys admitted to drawing the pictures, but names and words were added later.

They were suspended for three days. Cotton said Winchester Police arrested the boys during school Wednesday.

“I agree that they did need (to be) suspended for the drawings,” Cotton said. “I didn’t complain one bit about that, and I wouldn’t have complained if they got the full 10 days (suspension).”
Cotton also said her son and the others were questioned without their parents present. She said she is considering a civil suit against school administrators...

This from the Winchester Sun.

Anger at Coach Fuels Racial Divide in Rural Colorado

LA JARA, Colo. — The photograph, of four popular high school students standing side by side, each clutching a gun in one hand and giving a stiff-armed Nazi salute with the other, terrified many people in La Jara and the surrounding poor farming communities of the San Luis Valley. Its discovery further intensified a bitter racial divide between supporters of a longtime coach, who is black, and a largely white group of students and their parents.

What began as a dispute over playing time on the football field has, in recent months, led to the closing of the school, Centauri High, for a day, the postponement of the prom and a series of emotional community meetings. Tensions between opposing factions have grown so pronounced that some people fear they are tearing apart a remote region in southern Colorado near the New Mexico border that is more diverse than many in the state.

...All four were part of a group that in the fall of 2005 clashed with the veteran coach, Larry Joe Hunt, one of only a handful of African-Americans who live in Alamosa, near La Jara, where white and Hispanic residents predominate.

The boys, all members of the varsity football squad, were upset by what they felt was a lack of playing time and by what they called offensive language in hip-hop songs that Mr. Hunt, known for his intensity, played before games, said Cas Garcia, a lawyer representing the family of Trey Jackson. The boys, their parents and some other team members took their complaints to local school district officials but felt they were ignored, Mr. Garcia said.

This year, the dispute turned ugly when, according to Mr. Hunt’s son, Colby, 17, the players and their friends, who are white and Hispanic, began to insult Colby and other students who support the coach. Once, Colby recalled, they discussed, just loudly enough for him to hear, forming a club called the Lynch Mob or the Klan.

This from the New York Times.

The Black And White Of "Ho" Culture

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- In a new twist in American race relations, a federal court has ruled that a white teacher in a predominantly African-American school was subjected to a racially hostile workplace.

The case concerned Elizabeth Kandrac, who was routinely verbally abused by black students at Brentwood Middle School in North Charleston. Their slurs make shock jock Don Imus look like a church deacon.

Nevertheless, despite frequent complaints, school officials did nothing to intervene on Kandrac's behalf, arguing that the racially charged profanity was simply part of the students' culture. If Kandrac couldn't handle cursing, school officials told her, she was in the wrong school.

Kandrac finally filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and subsequently brought a lawsuit against the Charleston County School District, the school's principal and an associate superintendent. Last fall, jurors found that the school was a racially hostile environment to teach in and that the school district retaliated against Kandrac for complaining about it.

The defendants sought a new trial, but U.S. District Judge David C. Norton recently affirmed the verdict. However, he did not support the jury's findings of $307,500 in damages for lost income and emotional distress.

...Let's be clear: What these children called this teacher is beyond reprehensible and could be only be construed as hostile and threatening. Here's a sample: white b----, white m----- f-----, white c---, white a------, white ho.

This from Kathleen Parker at RealClearPolitics...and this from the Charleston Post and Courier.