In the disturbing photo of the high school juniors in Baraboo, Wisconsin, posing for a class photo giving the stiff-armed Nazi salute, off to the right is a lone black boy who doesn’t appear to be saluting (and there were other boys, thankfully, who didn’t go along with the gross stupidity as well). But I have to wonder what he was doing in the photo in the first place.
Now, before liberal integrationists get all bent out of shape and proclaim that his family has a right to live in that community and for him to attend that school, let me stipulate that I completely concur with that opinion. But nevertheless the question still remains — at least in my mind — what the hell he is doing there?
Naturally, the answer is because (for whatever reason) that’s where his parents decided to reside. It could very well be for reasons of employment, better schools, or that his parents wanted to live away from their own kind since the white man’s ice is always colder. There’s more of that kind of thinking going on than I care to admit. Or it could be he was adopted by a white family. All are possibilities.
If his parents are indeed black and their reason for residing in Baraboo had to do with a job that couldn’t be had somewhere else, I might be willing to cut them some slack, but for any other reason — no.
The photo should be proof positive enough of the potential perils of black families living in all-white communities. If this throwing-up of a sickening salute to just about the worse kind of racism the world has ever witnessed is a sentiment of a majority of this kid’s classmates one has to wonder how this black boy is being treated by them on a daily basis.
Over the years I’ve known a number of blacks who had the misfortune of being raised in similar circumstances, and almost to a person, they recounted horrible childhoods, especially after puberty when boys and girls start flirting with each other. Really, isn’t that what housing segregation is all about anyway, keeping the white ewes away from big, black (and supposedly dangerous) rams?
In virtually all such cases, the black parents really don’t have to suffer the ostracization their children face since they don’t have to deal with anyone in the community if they elect to not do so. They can go to work, come home, and slam the door. But their children don’t have that luxury.
Of course one could conjecture that the boy in the photo is having a grand old time of it in Baraboo, but if that’s the case, based on the disgusting photo, I have to wonder just how much misery he is masking.
And if indeed the boy was adopted by a white family, they need to be horsewhipped for being so insensitive as to not move to an integrated community so that the socialization process could take place as it should for their child — or better yet, not adopt a black child at all if they are this clueless.
These are the rules of racial engagement in America. We black folks don’t get to make them, but we damn sure better learn how to live by them if we don’t want problems. I still recall the case of the black high school football player in Medina who, a few years ago, decided to take a knee on the field, and the hell he and his family caught over his brave stand. The parents asked the NAACP to intervene and in turn, I asked, “What the hell were they thinking of moving out there anyway?
If integration is such a great idea (and I sincerely believe that it is), some white families should move next door to blacks. Why should it exclusively fall to us folks of color to bring this social healing about?
From CoolCleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author at http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.