I know that we all know what's going on in Jena, LA, but this morning on CNN, I saw two interesting (and terrible) things that made me think about what we will face as a teacher.
1) Yesterday morning 4 nooses were found hanging in a school in High Point, NC. The police are trying to decide if it was a prank or a hate crime.
and 2) A white supremacy group has listed the physical addresses of the Jena 6 boys "in case anyone wants to serve justice."

I guess I'm just trying to point out that although we would like to think that Jena 6 is an isolated case, it obviously is not. This is something that we should all be aware of as teachers. Even though we'd like to think that we won't have to face something like hate crimes in our classrooms, we should be aware that hate is still a prominent issue, and that is still an issue in all parts of the United States, not just in the South, and in many aspects, not just an issue about race.

Wow! I had not heard about the nooses found in High Point but sadly I can say that it is not that shocking that something that could happen right here in NC. I think racism is something that still affects the South dramatically. I know that in my high school things were still very segregated between different races. In our lunchroom the white students would mostly sit in the larger area and the African American students would sit in a different area in the back. It was really sad to see but something that had just been done for so long that people never seemed to question it. I just wish that our administration and teachers would have done more to encourage diversity and acceptance of others within my school. Having these experiences and feeling the separation that I felt throughout our town has encouraged me to want to help students be more accepting of others and encourage the appreciation of differences.

How ridiculous! I'm truly saddened every time I hear about stuff such as that going on. It's funny how people think that racism isn't a problem anymore in the US. I actually think people just suppress it, rather than facing that racism still exists in America, which is awful. We need to be aware of it and keep our eyes open as teachers for any sign of prejudice that can show up in our classrooms. It happens more often then we like to think, for instance students will often refer to things as "gay" or "retarded".
Just as Candace said, my lunchroom tended to be really segregated. All the black kids sat together on one side and on the other side all the white kids sat together. It's sucks, to put it simply. Though state instituted segregation is outlawed, we still self segregate. It's something to be aware of for sure.

If anyone hasn't seen the movie Crash then you have to see it. This movie depicts the idea or racism perfectly. Everyone has these racist stereotypes no matter who you are. No matter how much you want to deny them. Saying Asians are bad drivers. I know plenty of Asians who are great drivers. Saying Asians are smart. I know plenty who aren't. I wish we could teach our new generation to be completely color blind. Crash is a great movie and I think everyone, not only in our class, should see it.

I had no idea about those nooses being found in High Point! That is such a wake up call to me; to know that the racism I have been viewing on tv in Jena is also so close to home. Something that bothers me is that the police are trying to decide whether the nooses were a "prank" or a hate crime. I do not see how a noose could ever be viewed as just a prank, when there is so much hate associated with them. I think it should be obvious that whoever hung those nooses up intended to show hatred and not just pull a prank.

I agree with you Ashley. I do not ever think that something that has such powerful symbolic meaning could be viewed as a prank. I feel that whoever decided it would be "funny" to hang those in a tree should be punished anyways. Such hateful symbols such as nooses should not even be considered to be pranks and should be dealt with seriously. At least this way people might actually start taking this sort of situation seriously.

Wow I cannot or should i say i do not want to believe that this strong of racism is happening in our back yard. I know that discrimination will be around but i really wish it would come to an end and having this happen so close to home really upsets me. Maja I loved the movie Crash i think that everyone needs to watch it because it really depicts different ways people can be a victim of racism and it shows it through different races. With our classrooms being diverse we should take the opportunity and teach the students about racism.

CRASH. This is a great movie that depicts everyday events in the world. It is sad but true that we all have stereotypes no matter how hard we try not to acknowledge them. But, it is important that we realize that we do have them so we can consciously work against them. I did a program last year with the movie CRASH (I am an RA in EGGERS HALL) that sparked a great conversation / debate at the end of the movie. If you have not seen this movie, I would recommend it. Teachers should especially be aware of what is happening in their classrooms. Even if things are not said, just implied, it has the same affect on any human being. You can not force people to like one another. However, you can create a classroom environment that accepts everyone and promotes diversity. It is amazing what a group of different individuals can come up with (i.e. critical thinking questions and projects) as opposed to people of the same culture. As to the “prankâ€

I had not heard about the incident in High Point either. It is scary that the publicity over an issue like the Jena 6 could spark more racist demonstrations. You would hope that people would learn how terrible this demonstration was and how many people in the community it hurt and would become more open minded rather than to replicate the orriginal racist demonstration. I also think that it is pretty scary that this controversy is just now being highly publicized even though the first event happened a year ago. I think that the issue was important enough to have been publicized nationaly much earlier.

It is sad that in today's modern society that we still have this type of crime happening. I agree that a noose is a hate symbol and if displayed out in the open it should be viewed as a hate crime, not a prank. Pranks are meant to be funny, not a symbol of years and years of hatred. What I wanted to know is do you all think that the Confederate Flag is a symbol of hate or should it be seen as a symbol of heritage. I am from an area that students would wear the flag on shirts, hats, stickers on cars, and some days they flew a flag from their cars to school. Should school systems view that as "hate" or freedom of speech?

I guess it is free speech, but in my mind, it is simply a sign of ignorance. I know that many people say that it is a display of heritage, but I have two major problems with that.

1) The confederate flag isn't even the actual flag that the South flew under during the Civil War. It is a battle flag used by SOME of the troops. If one truely wanted to display a sign of their heritage, they should use the real flags of the confederacy. (http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/mu ... /main.html You can go to this link to see them...just scroll down a little bit)
2) Why is this a part of anyone's heritage that they want to be proud of? This flag is a symbol of racism and hate, not of being proud of one's stance on states rights or something that could be attributed to the Confederacy.

I know what you mean Zach, that was rampant in my high school as well. It never really did cause a problem, but that is probably because we had about 15 African-American Students in the school.
I've been doing my internship at Avery, a pretty small school with old fashioned values. I was sitting in on a US History class the other day and they were covering the Civil War. There were a few jokes about this or that that were not appropriate to be said, so the teacher changed her agenda and made them get permission slips signed so that they could watch Amistad, which I believe is a great movie to show you just what Slavery was.
Since I am going to be a History Teacher I will definitely have to deal with the issue of slavery and "southern heritage". It will really be a touchy issue in a mixed class with a good number of both white people and african-americans. How would you all handle the situation when it came up? Change your lesson plan to try to teach the kids the truth, or keep going with your lessons and hope the student changes his or her narrow view point?

I believe that is why it was not a big deal in my high school because it was a school in the country where most of the students were white. We had a very small number of African Americans in a school of 1300. I think people have the right to wear a shirt or display a flag of the confederacy, but it would not feel right because what happened under that flag. Do you all think that the people who display this symbol do not know what happened in the south during that period or do you think they know and support it?

I think that the movie crash is a great movie also. I think everyone should watch it and see how people in the world really do view everyone. I just watched the movie for the first time last week and I was stunned to see how people can really be in the world. Of course I always knew that people were prejudice but maybe just not that bad. I think there is always going to be rasicsm in every school whether it deals with color or your background. The best thing we can do is just try to educate people on other peoples race or background.