vandalism
High school students in Rochelle, GA campaign for integrated prom
CREDIT: Clutch Magazine
High school students in rural Georgia are campaigning to end the racial segregation of dances at their school, according to WSAV3. The four friends behind the campaign, two of them black and two of them white, say it is unfair that they can’t go to prom together.
Since the integration of Georgia schools in the early 1970s, racially segregated proms have been organized as private parties without funding from the school. Campaign organizers say the segregation is strictly enforced, and last year a biracial student who tried to attend the white prom was turned away by police.
"I was just doing what I thought was right, and here I am on the stage at Warner Bros. Studio, being featured on the Season 10 premiere of the Ellen show and I’m within arm's reach of all these celebrities that are here to help me?"
By Richard W. Henegar Jr.
Jordan Addison (left) and Richard Henegar Jr., Mike Shaw | The Burgs
This spring, I received an email from an old friend who asked if I knew anyone who could help a student fix his car. The email had several attachments: images that were disturbing to say the least, but most of all, made me angry. They were pictures of a young man’s car that had been severely vandalized. This was obviously a hate crime.
Early last month, a group of four vandals set out on a hate-fueled excursion in their Mount Dora, Fla., neighborhood--spray cans in hand. Their target was the Traditional Congregation of Mount Dora, a newly erected synagogue that was scheduled to open in two weeks.
On the morning of July 9, 2011, Mount Dora residents woke up to a shocking scene. Anti-Semitic graffiti, as well as other hate message and profane slurs, were spray-painted on several structures of the synagogue.
While it took police officials weeks to arrest James Maple, 22, two juveniles, and twenty-year-old Cory Gallman--the latter lived right down the street from the synagogue-- it took community members a mere two hours to react to the hate.
A community unites to clean up graffiti sprayed on the
Nashville, TN:
"How terrible that someone would write ‘Muslims Go Home’ when they are home!” exclaimed a neighbor who helped organize a team of volunteers to support Nashville's Muslim community after a mosque was defaced. The community's swift response reaffirmed its commitment to inclusiveness.
FEAR INSPIRES HATE
On Oct. 2, Stanford University’s Jewish community celebrated the first night of Sukkot, the harvest festival that commemorates the Biblical story of the Israelites living in booths in the desert after their exodus from Egypt. As is traditional during the eight-day holiday, Jewish students and faculty at the Palo Alto campus ate dinner inside a sukkah, a three-sided hut built to observe the holiday.
