I like to think that as I get older, although remaining mostly idealistic, I’m not as naive as I used to be. When I first read the above headline on CNN.com, many things went through my head. “What do they mean by integrated? Was there a bunch of little proms and now there’s one uber-prom? Are they maybe now including freshman and sophomores? Why is this news?” Even after clicking on the link and reading the story highlights at the top, I didn’t totally get it:

- “Students of Turner County [Georgia] High School voted to have school-sponsored prom
- In the past, parents have organized private, segregated dances

“What, the parents used to put on their own proms and only invite the ‘cool’ people or something? Like the jocks and cheerleaders?” Then I read the first line of the story:

Students of Turner County High School started what they hope will become a new tradition: Black and white students attended the prom together for the first time on Saturday.

You have got to be f#%@ing kidding me.

What year is this? The context of that headline — a story in the here and now — totally caught me off guard, hence my complete misunderstanding of what the subject of the article could possibly be. That would have made sense had I seen it in a newspaper clipping from, oh, almost 40 years ago. But just now? No wonder this country is so screwed up. It gets even better with a (white) student referring to a prom she attended in 2001:

“There was not anybody that I can remember that was black,” she said. “The white people have theirs, and the black people have theirs. It’s nothing racial at all.“

But the crowning jewel is really the parents. Bless these kids, most of them seem to be all for the integrated prom, but some of them actually weren’t allowed to go because their parents “don’t agree with being with the colored people”. Can you imagine those kids having to explain to their date/friend/future family and children that they couldn’t go to their senior prom because their elitist white southern parents were so racist they couldn’t bear the thought of their children at a party in the same room as blacks…in 2007?? Not that that sick mentality was ever acceptable to begin with, but I guess the whole point of this post is that I can’t believe that racism can still be so blatant, even in the south. I guess they got around the desegregation laws by throwing them as private parties.

I bet those asshole parents call themselves Christians too. They’re the ones with the “family values”. They’re also the ones that vote all these “family values” politicians we have into office. Awesome. I think I need to go be sick now.

Read the story on CNN.com.