Saturday, August 06, 2011

A bad, bad idea

Red Wing, a Minnesota high school, has made the news thanks to a lawsuit filed by one of its recent graduates.  Apparently, the student felt offended by a homecoming day.  Now for whatever reason, something happens during homecoming week where rational people just seem to lose their reason and do just plain stupid things.  Athletic events is another occasion where this happens (and that led a local high school into a similar situation some years ago when they negatively portrayed native Americans).

Most schools tend to celebrate home coming week with various theme days: ugly sweater day, '80s day, camouflage day, twin day, and so on.  Apparently, according to this Time article, Red Wing decided to go with a "Wigger Day" in which the vastly white population of the school dressed in stereotypical African American attire associated to rap culture - baggy pants, baseball hats on sideways, and so on.

Any way you slice it, this is a terrible idea.  About as bad as the elementary teacher who decided to teach her class a lesson in slavery by holding a mock auction in which she actually auctioned off the African American students.

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