Denied Valedictorian Receives Her Honor, 75 Years Late

For totally inarticulate-able reasons, this story just struck me right there.  A long overdue rectification of an injustice toward a more-than-deserving individual just has the right ring of sorrow and satisfaction.  Please watch:

The story reports that “it’s believed that school leaders did not want two black valedictorians so close together.”  Fanetta’s Gordon’s sister claims that the principal of the school especially did not want two black students from the same family to graduate with valedictorian honors.   As a result, the principal ordered the music teacher to lower one of Fanetta’s grades in the class. 

Most of us would quickly judge this a case of discrimination and robbery, and I believe that it was.  But I believe it was more sinister than even that.  You see, the principal denied Fanetta not what she was entitled to as a human being (because not all human beings are valedictorians).  Far worse, he denied a title and an honor that Fanetta earned and deserved.  The principal took something away from Fanetta that she had already possessed by ordering the music teacher to change her grade.  The way I understand it, the principal did not simply discriminate, he made her the victim of affirmative action to a position that traditionally has a quota of one.  So instead of one black young woman who earned her way to the top, a most likely white student received the valedictorian honors that he or she did not deserve just because of race. 

I hope that those who support affirmative action in the contemporary debate realize that affirmative action almost always victimizes someone.  Some colleges have quotas; almost all colleges have limits on the number of acceptances per school year based on race and ethnicity, which means someone will inevitably be rejected for belonging to the wrong race.  Employers cannot legally discriminate in hiring, yet they must fill out surveys on the racial makeup of their employees (by percentages!) that can be used to accuse them of doing the very thing they try to avoid, usually at the bark of some malcontent civil rights attorney.  In affirmative action, the dividing line between acceptance and hiring vs. rejection is race-based.  As a society, we should know that what is used to allow one race to gain a certain benefit almost always means that another race must face an undeserved loss, just as Fanetta Gordon did so long ago.  Certain races have always been favored over others for whatever reasons in any civilization.  As much as I’d like to change it and would encourage change on this, I have to admit that this is the way of the world.

It is thankfully not the way of the Kingdom of Christ, however. Galatians 3:27-29 says, “for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Every believer is a favored person under the merits of Jesus Christ. We are all spiritual paupers who have been given lavish suites in the mansion of Christ. How then can we deny another something that he/she deserves in this world? It is with the understanding that each human being is unworthy of God’s favor, yet we have it through Jesus, that we can act with justice toward each other.

I am so glad Fanetta Gordon finally received her honor, albeit a sorrowful 75 years denied. Kudos to the school for doing the right thing after all these years.

A Hitler By Any Other Name Would Smell Just as Sweet?

It was just a matter of time before America's PC chicken would come home home to roost. A Pennsylvania couple made headlines when a local grocery store refused to decorate their son's birthday cake with his name on it. The boy's name? Adolf Hitler Campbell.

Okay, so one might wonder why these parents would name their child after the leader of the infamous Third Reich. In their own defense, they claim that "Adolf Hitler" is just another German name plucked from their German heritage. Pretty innocent? Uh-huh. What about one of the other kids, the one they gave the middle name "Aryan Nation?"

Legally, parents can curse their children with objectionable names if they want (within limits, of course), but then to try act all casual and innocent about it for the newspaper is just disingenuous (I prefer to think of it as blatant SOB-havior).

But all right, back to the chicken - Are these people white supremacists? In my view, there's not much reason to name their offspring after Nazis unless they were. White supremacists are a hated minority here in the U.S. I would find it downright humorous and poetic should a case like the Campbells become a legal matter of discrimination that the ACLU would come to their defense. What a hoot!

(I know that the ACLU have defended white supremacists in various legal matters, but what would it look like on CNN?)

Two Worlds and Double Standards?

Although I don't watch The View at all, apparently I can't avoid the show, since it produces news-capturing controversy on a regular basis. This time, it is riding the coattails of Jesse Jackson's curious "accidental" (?) negative remarks about Barack Obama, using the n-word. On The View, hostesses Whoopi Goldberg and Sherri Shepherd defend the use of the n-word, but only among blacks and only those blacks that supposedly know what they're doing with that word. In other words, dirty rappers may or may not fall into that category. Hm. Conversely, no white folk (or any other color folk) should ever find themselves uttering such a word, because then it becomes an blatant racial slur. The condemnation that follows such an utterance then should be swift and severe. I see. Now you see:


Credit YouTube user speakmymind01.

What if I should behave the same with racial words used for Asians by more blacks than whites that have ever run across my path? In my lifetime, it was a black child older than I that ever harassed me physically. Should I hold that against all blacks? Should I say then that no black person can use certain words but make an exception for myself and others of my own racial grouping? That isn't just ridiculous, it is repugnant.

There indeed are two worlds. Apparently, Elisabeth Hasselbeck (and I) live in the one that wants to bring unity and compassion to our existence. Whoopi lives in the world that doesn't. Whoopi doesn't just bring attention to racial disparity, she wallows in it. In a society that is sincerely trying to move beyond skin color as a measure of one's personhood and value, Whoopi and Jesse Jackson mean to drag as many as they can to the depths of their anger and refuse to let the nation heal. We cannot have a dawn of a new day if civil rights activists insist on shooting out the sun.

I summon the spirit of Rodney King that begs you to let us all get along. Clean up your mouth. Let go of the nastiness.

You damn Yankees are all alike.

Often, while going about my day-to-day, I get what I call "ethnoquizzed." Yesterday's encounter seemed par for the course, but it ended on an interesting note.

"Japanese?"
"No, I--"
"Korean?"
"Well, we are--"
"From China?"
"My heritage is from Hong Kong. But I--"
"Oh, Hong Kong is China."
"Well, most people from Hong Kong don't say they are from China."
"But Hong Kong is part of China."
"Yes, it is now."
"I am from Africa. China has lots of people. I hope they have more, because they can stand up to the Americans."

Hm. Not usually how this conversation goes. Puzzled, I continue with this intriguing African man ringing up my strawberry plant.

"But the Chinese don't have freedom. People cannot have more than one child. Here you can have as many children as you want," as I nod at my two little ones in the shopping cart.
"Really? Well, it's population control."

I try not to laugh at this point.

"Americans--"
"If you are an American citizen, then you are an American, right?"
"Yes, but I am African-American, and you are Chinese-American. I still have my memory and love for our ways in Africa. It is different than Americans. They don't have this."
"But if you stayed in Africa, then wouldn't you be like everyone else there?"
"Oh, that is very philosophical. You are getting philosophical."

Oh, now I am getting philosophical? After attempting to criticize Americans for being Americans and wanting to draw a faulty distinction between being an American and an American citizen, I am the one getting philosophical? After being thusly dismissed, I didn't have the heart to tell him that I was born and raised here just like every other Yankee he disdains.

Bananas, Coconuts, Oreos...

crackers, and chocolate.

From petty insults to New Orleans' Myr. Ray Nagin's deplorable "chocolate city" statements, those who make race-based caricatures of people as food items should be ashamed of themselves.

Are we talking about people?

And about bananas, coconuts, oreos, crackers, and chocolate? I happen to like all those!