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Ole Miss anti-Obama incident only one of several

November 8th, 2008 @ 8:04 am - by lotus · 6 Comments

The C-L’s Elizabeth Crisp records several more ugly incidents across the South of the nature we saw earlier this week at Ole Miss.

One, actually two, in Pearl, Mississippi, saw employees of the local schools — a bus driver and a coach — banning children — black and white — from the bus or class simply for mentioning the President-elect’s name. The superintendent won’t say what disciplinary actions he took against these Neanderthals, but they all made the WAPT news.

The Mississippi ACLU’s executive director, Nsombi Lambright, told Crisp she worries that students’ free speech has suffered since the election.

“We’ve been hearing that students have been told they couldn’t say the name Barack Obama,” Lambright said.

An educator in Madison County has contacted the group but did not want to go forward with allegations for fear of retribution, she said. Lambright urged students and parents to come forward as well.

“This is a historic time for our country, and it’s really unfortunate that students aren’t able to talk about it,” Lambright said.

Equally incredible:

When the votes were tallied and Obama was declared the victor, profile updates on Facebook – a social networking site popular among college students – went into overdrive. Many of them exposed racial biases and fears.

“These attitudes often are passed on by the parents to young people,” [Jackson State political science professor Leslie Burl] McLemore said.

Baylor University students reported a rope tied in the shape of a noose was spotted in a tree on campus, and Obama campaign signs were burned in a fire pit. Verbal altercations also arose.

At North Carolina State University, the U.S. Secret Service assisted in the investigation of [a] spray-painting incident because of the nature of the graffiti, which said “Shoot Obama” and “Kill that n—–.”

Federal agents determined there was no actual threat to Obama, and the four students will not be charged.

Attached to Crisp’s article, this notice:

The ACLU encourages students and parents to call (601) 354-3408 if they have been subjected to or witnessed any form of restrictions on speech or sanctions connected to the election of Barack Obama as president.

How shaming that it’s necessary. Some days, my remaining tinge of Southern accent actively creeps me out.

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Filed Under: Herald & Examiner

6 Responses so far ↓

  1. confounded says:

    If you think about it, instilling and inciting race hate in your children is a form of child abuse.

  2. GlitterGirl says:

    Well put, confounded.

  3. lotus says:

    Amen, confounded. It sure is one of the most effective ways to UNequip your kids for the society they’ll have to fit into. Very stupid parenting.

  4. DeltaLawMama says:

    Of all the items sent into interstate commerce in these United States, the single most valuable export of the State of Mississippi has always been brains.

  5. lotus says:

    DLM, I don’t know whether you were reading here when I thanked Hazlehurst, Miss., for running off to Florida my treasured MD. Too bad that Hazlehurst probably needs her more — we got her now, and they can’t have her back.

  6. lotus says:

    Did y’all see this story in NYT?

    Tolerance Over Race Can Spread, Studies Find

    Pretty amazing: a four-hour process that some researchers used in an experiment ended up building lasting bonds between diverse pairs of the research-subjects — but then also spread to each participant’s social circle, lowering prejudice throughout the whole extended group.