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When "Tradition" Destroys Progress

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megscissorhands
05/24/09

In reply to When "Tradition" Destroys Progress
Can't someone get the ACLU up in here? I know it wouldn't be as simple as suing the school system for hosting a segregated prom, but couldn't they sue the school system for not providing an alternative to the segregated proms? And isn't it illegal to have a "private" party with explicit rules against black people attending--when it's a community-based function?? I don't know, I just feel there must be a legal loophole here somewhere to get these fuckers' "white prom" shut down.

& I certainly hope being publicly shamed/humiliated in the NYT contributes to a significant change next year. I just wish NYT had enabled commenting--I would being berserk over there right now.
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Charlotte Corday
05/24/09

In reply to When "Tradition" Destroys Progress
I'll never fucking get why some people yap on and on about "tradition", as if in the dim and murky past, there had existed a world in which slavery, beating your wife, periodic pogroms, and stoning your neighbour for mowing his lawn on the Sabbath led to Utopia. Hey, why change anything? It's "traditional"!
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IBleedGlitter: The High Priestess of Tinsel
05/23/09

In reply to When "Tradition" Destroys Progress
Buying your date a corsage is a tradition. Having a segregated prom is not. It's racist. End of story.
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Maulleigh
05/23/09

In reply to When "Tradition" Destroys Progress
I saw this this morning and immediately sent it to my FB page!! I could not/can not believe it!

I want someone to do a follow up article on this.
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Tu-lip
05/23/09

In reply to When "Tradition" Destroys Progress
I didn't know segregation was still a case in US. I don't know if I understood it correctly, because obviously my knowledge about the situation is more than second-hand but, both black and white communities decide that it is better to keep the separated proms in well, mixed schools? Is it only the south? I would't like to offend anyone but I am really curious about it!

It is like Toni Morrison's novels all over again...
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topsy
05/23/09

@Tu-lip: If this was a Toni Morrison novel, an elder would speak some sense to the black students, tell them who they are and who they are descended from and the black prom would become a highlight of the black social scene. The white students would grow up to be just like their parents. At least that's the Toni Morrison I know.
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RocktheDebit
05/23/09

In reply to When "Tradition" Destroys Progress
Harley, dear, you're either racist yourself or a fucking moral coward. I'm not sure which is worse.

Dear Montgomery County schools: You are made of fail.
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queenieinmanhattan
05/23/09

@RocktheDebit: Fucking moral coward is worse, because at least a racist can be made to see the error of his or her ways...
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Ulookinatmyjunk, JOC
05/23/09

In reply to When "Tradition" Destroys Progress
Before the advent of nail clippers, biting your own toenails was something of a "tradition", too. Just because it's "always been done" does not mean that it has to be done any longer.
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tomatoheart
05/23/09

In reply to When "Tradition" Destroys Progress
If you folks haven't seen the documentary "The Order of Myths" yet, I would HIGHLY recommend it. It's a film about the two sides of the very segregated Mardi Gras scene in Mobile Alabama. Don't write it off just because it's about racism in the South -- it shows a lot of the same themes as mentioned above and how people's attitudes about "tradition" and segregation.

[www.theorderofmyths.com]

It was at sundance and SXSW. Here's the salon.com review too

[mobile.salon.com]

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Lisabel (ne: Dagnabbit)
05/27/09

@tomatoheart: THANK YOU! I was googling all over the place to track this title down and post it. "Myths" is beautifully shaded, and it's fascinating to watch those in the younger generation struggle with honoring the past yet defining a newer, more integrated future. There's no one to easily hate or vilify, and the movie examines the complex relationships without speechifying or indictment. Again, thanks for posting.
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DangerMouse
05/23/09

In reply to When "Tradition" Destroys Progress
Can I just say, "WTF is up with you and KFC, reporter?"

Seriously, what the heck was that about? Repeatedly noting that the non-white kids went to KFC, how much they ate, etc.

Why not just put in bold font: "Black people like fried chicken."
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AjaxNangerini
05/23/09

In reply to When "Tradition" Destroys Progress
and by tradition, that Mom meant slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, and white privilege and entitlement... I get it, the parents want to take out their remembrances of the imagined greatness of their Whiteness on some teenagers... RED STATES LOSE...
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Little Green Frog (Wise Latina)
05/23/09

@AjaxNangerini: Don't forget flying the Confederate falg. You know they only do it to "remember the Civil War" not because of slavery, nooo, not at all.
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Sputnik_Sweetheart
05/23/09

In reply to When "Tradition" Destroys Progress
Has anyone seen the documentary, Prom Night in Mississippi? It is about a Mississippi school (mentioned in the article) that had segregated proms until only a couple of years ago, after Morgan Freeman offered to pay for it. It was really comforting actually, because the vast majority of the students want the prom integrated, and had it was mostly the (white) parents who wanted the white prom and the black prom. The students/parents who were dead set against an integrated prom had their own "white prom" and despite their concerns that having an integrated prom would lead to violence (read: your black son will rape my white daughter), the only fight at the two proms, happened at the white one.
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Smörgås bored
05/23/09

In reply to When "Tradition" Destroys Progress
I can guarantee that right now somewhere in Hollywood movie producers are scrambling to contact NYT and the author to acquire rights to this article.
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queenieinmanhattan
05/23/09

@dingdang: I am telling you: Footloose 2: The Desegregation of Madison.
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queenieinmanhattan
05/23/09

@queenieinmanhattan: Er, Montgomery. Whatever. The concept remains the same. :-)
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Sister Toldja
05/23/09

In reply to When "Tradition" Destroys Progress
Thanks for only having the (rap) music and booty shaking pics for the Black prom montage, NYT. Stay classy.

That one girl's color contacts pissed me off, especially considering what this article was about. Come on sista.

If they ever have a Real Housewives of Montgomery County, we will see this Haley character and her mother again.

I hope ALL of these kids get the hell out of this town for college.
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queenieinmanhattan
05/23/09

@Sister Toldja: Well, they did have the lined-up-awkwardly pic, and the getting-out-of-the-car-and-adjusting-the-wedgie pic, but I do hear you.
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queenieinmanhattan
05/23/09

@queenieinmanhattan: Er, that ellipsis used to read "wedgie."
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superineficaz
05/23/09

@Sister Toldja:

i'm glad i'm not the only one who noticed and took issue with that. you spend the entire first two thirds of the slideshow showing only pictures of white kids, but you still somehow manage to include embarrassing dancing shots from only the black prom? really?
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queenieinmanhattan
05/23/09

@superineficaz: I wonder if they let the cameras into the white prom? I was wondering why there wasn't a shot of the weird parade thing, since it was, for me, the most powerfully symbolic part of the story...
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topsy
05/23/09

@Sister Toldja: Looks to me that they were having fun; can't hate on that. I bet the other prom had square-dancing.
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hortense
05/23/09

In reply to When "Tradition" Destroys Progress
Eh, guys, I think we can agree that the things Harley said were ignorant, but I don't think we need to bash an 18-year-old girl's appearance, you know?
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NellMood
05/23/09

@hortense: Thanks for saying that.
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Sister Toldja
05/23/09

@hortense: Prom is the official point in a young woman's life when grown women can talk bad about her clothes. I get prom emails every year of all the homemade dress monstrosities. It's a rite of passage....like holding the baby women up (a la Mufasa and Simba) and saying "Welcome to the world. Women hate each other. Go forward and be catty. PS-you have side boob".

It's the circle of life!
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Evie Havok
05/23/09

@hortense: I thought we were free to rag on adults? Isn't 18 the age of adulthood? I'm not keen on being nice to racist/racially clueless people but whatever. I didn't say anything about her appearance.
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Sister Toldja
05/23/09

@Evie Havok: I concur. She was a cute girl, everything wrong with her was ON her. Well, and in her heart and mind.
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hortense
05/23/09

@Sister Toldja: Ha!

I don't know, you guys. I just don't want this thread to spin off into a "well of course she says racist things, look at her, she looks like a blah blah blah" as I think that's a pretty dangerous mode of thinking anyway. Harley Boone may be the visual rep of the white kids at this school, but she's not the only one, and certainly not the only one who thinks this is "okay" and "just the way it is." Her dumb gown may be hideous but it's her mentality that is ugly and that's what needs to be discussed here.
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topsy
05/23/09

@hortense: The first thing that struck me about Harley were the words coming out of her mouth, which disgusted me. It was only after, that I noticed her questionable choice of prom dress. And then, I saw her mother and her stepfather and everything was explained.
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ALittleBitGothic
05/23/09

@hortense: Moreover, have any of you been to proms in the past decade? I have, and I can tell you that Harley Boone's prom ensemble is pretty ho-hum. You wanna see awful prom dresses? Here are some awful prom dresses:[www.ebaumsworld.com]
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queenieinmanhattan
05/23/09

@hortense: But I really do think her "look" is at least one of the reasons the Times chose her as the de facto spokesperson for the white kids here...and that decision, I think, is worth discussing.
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Triphena
05/23/09

@ALittleBitGothic: Oh my God, WHERE ARE THEIR PARENTS?! I wouldn't let my best friend out of the house like that, let alone my child.
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kelsium
05/23/09

In reply to When "Tradition" Destroys Progress
So, um, NYT. It's annoying that we don't see a person of color until TWO THIRDS of the way through the audio slide show, meanwhile we are looking at eight bajillion pictures of a racist white girl.
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Evie Havok
05/23/09

@kelsium: They're trying to appeal to their audience. Duh.

I'm half-joking.
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kelsium
05/23/09

@Evie Havok: But seriously, it's just weird that they chose the blondest girl with the biggest boobs to voyeuristically obsess over for the first two minutes, and then threw in a bunch of shots of sad black kids. The fuck?
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queenieinmanhattan
05/23/09

@kelsium: @Evie Havok: Given that their audience is naturally conditioned to think less of someone with over-bleached hair and a tacky dress, I actually think they're leading with someone to get you all angry.

That's my take, anyhow.
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whynotshesaid
05/23/09

@kelsium: I don't know, yo. Those black kids toward the end looked like they were having a blast.
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kelsium
05/23/09

@queenieinmanhattan: Maybe that's it. I guess that makes sense.
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greengrey
05/23/09

@queenieinmanhattan: Hah, I thought they were trying to make her look bad? Like the pic with the tacky LV bag that was big in 2004, but now you just look like an idiot if you carry LV? Yeeeah. They seemed to want to find the grossest person and just highlight them.
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queenieinmanhattan
05/23/09

@greengrey: Exactly. That in and of itself made me a little sad, honestly, but they seemed to highlight someone they knew would be easy for their readers to dismiss.

I mean, I totally disagree with every word out of her mouth and out of her mother's, and what she looks like or how she dresses wouldn't change that, but it does make an impression.
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