None Dare Call it Racism

Let's face it, Sweet Home Alabama is well-known for its racial history. It is the home of former Governor George C. Wallace known for his infamous stand in the school house door.

It is the home of the Scottsboro Boys, 9 black boys falsely accused of raping two white women.

It is the home of the 16th Street Baptist Church where 4 little black girls were murdered when a bomb exploded during Sunday school.

Alabama was the home of Jimmy Lee Jackson a young civil rights protester who was shot and killed by Alabama State Troopers.

It is the home of Bloody Sunday where civil rights marchers were attacked by Alabama State Troopers in Selma.

Alabama is the home of the Freedom Riders who were the victims of police sanctioned mob violence.

Yes, Alabama is the Heart of Dixie where the Confederate Flag still flies on the grounds of the birth place of the Confederacy.

The city of Huntsville, Alabama is not mentioned in any of the above incidents due to the "perception" it is a progressive oasis in the reddest of the red states. Huntsville's "image" wasn't marred by bombings, Bull Conner, cross burnings, boycotts, dogs, and fire hoses like it's sister cities and towns. Many believed the city was immune from the ignorance of racism when schools and public facilities integrated without fanfare (except for the public swimming pool) due to Huntsville's educated and diverse populace.

Republican honcho Hugh McIinnish dispelled this myth with the stroke of keyboard in a letter to the United States Department of Justice claiming racial disparities in the school system were due to *ahem* life's unfairness, but none dare call his point of view racist racism. This is what they believe

The term “racism” has become just a magical incantation used to make other people shut up. I see no evidence that it has any substantive meaning anymore.

Oh really? Slavery, Jim Crow and Bull Conner were life's unfairness? Racism doesn't have meaning anymore? Well, let me provide evidence of not only the meaning of racism, but it's reality. Let's start with the definition of racism;

The belief that some races are inherently superior (physically, intellectually, or culturally) to others and therefore have a right to dominate them. In the United States, racism, particularly by whites against blacks, has created profound racial tension and conflict in virtually all aspects of American society. Until the breakthroughs achieved by the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, white domination over blacks was institutionalized and supported in all branches and levels of government, by denying blacks their civil rights and opportunities to participate in political, economic, and social communities.

Now let's define a racist:

A person with a prejudiced belief that one race is superior to others

The final word we need to define is prejudice:

A hostile opinion about some person or class of persons. Prejudice is socially learned and is usually grounded in misconception, misunderstanding, and inflexible generalizations. In particular, African-Americans have been victims of prejudice on a variety of social, economic, and political levels.

Let's move on to Hugh McIinnish's *cough cough* point of view;

"Blacks misbehave on average more frequently than whites do," McInnish said. "(Brown) hasn't shown any evidence to the contrary."

McInnish went so far as to include in his letter a chart that purports to show the "black crime rate as (a) multiple of (the) white crime rate." The chart indicates that black people commit more than six times the violent crime of white people overall; it has them committing about eight times as many murders as white people and more than 14 times as many robberies.

The data he uses, however, comes from New Century Foundation, an organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center cites as playing a leading role in the world of "academic racism."

The center describes New Century Foundation as a "self-styled think tank that promotes pseudo-scientific studies and research that purport to show the inferiority of blacks to whites - although in highfalutin language that avoids open racial slurs and attempts to portray itself as serious scholarship."

Hugh McInnish is from back in the day of standing in the school house door against "colored" children attending those lily white schools. In his mind, them there darkies are not entitled to a decent education. If that's not racism, what is it? Thanks to Hugh McInnish for tellling us how they really feel.

Huntsville righty's are whining that it is being unfairly singled out because the DoJ told them don't even think about being released from the 41 year old federal court order to desegregate the school system. Not content to accept the DoJ findings gracefully, the righty's, enabled by the media strike back by attacking the President of of the Huntsville Branch of the NAACP and the DoJ.

I repeat; It's the Stoopid Racism. In order to overcome racial prejudice we need to understand and respect each others differences and experiences. When love and understanding move into our hearts it has the power to remove all forms of hatred. It's time for us to become part of the solution and not be the problem.

As long as the quality of public education in Huntsville is based on parental income and property values there is no hope for the Huntsville City Schools.

As long as those in positions of power believe it’s a silly, unrealistic, line that every school should be as good as Grissom, there is no hope for Huntsville City Schools.

As long as those in positions of power believe them uppity coloreds and sneaky Mexicans would receive an education only white, god-fearing, clean, and law-abiding children deserve, there is no hope for the Huntsville City Schools.

As long as black parents aren't politically involved to the same extent as white parents there is no hope for the Huntsville City Schools.

I don't care how many Superintendents, clueless consultants and school boards are hired and fired, there is no hope for the Huntsville City Schools as long as elected officials with racist beliefs like McInnish have the power to exercise racism.

Is it going to take another 41 years before Huntsville City Schools are fully integrated?