Another Jena ... in Amish Country? Racial incident (one kid arrested so far)

[gauguin57]

This high school is north of Lancaster, PA. Confederate flags allegedly waved, trash allegedly thrown at black students. Good lord!

http://local.lancasteronline.com/4/210443

Racial threats, slurs at Warwick
Police arrest student. Metal detectors part of stronger security.

Lancaster New Era

LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. - A police and school district investigation is under way into a racially motivated incident that happened Wednesday at Warwick High School.

A few white students waved Confederate flags, spewed racial slurs and threw trash directly at several black students at 7:40 a.m. while driving around in the student parking lot, witnesses reported to the school district. Lititz police arrested one male student Thursday morning in connection to the incident, charging him with disorderly conduct, Sgt. Kerry Good said.

... One mother posted on lancasteronline.com that her daughter witnessed the events in the parking lot.

"My daughter came home from school yesterday very upset," wrote the poster, who goes by the online name of ihavehorns. "She said that there are some kids at school that make a show of waving their confederate flags and making racist comments to the black students. ... Yesterday, she said that these kids were driving around the parking lot waving the flag and throwing garbage at some black students. They were making comments like, 'Bow down to me like your ancestors did.'"

[againes654]

1. The racial undercurrent in this country

is out of control. We need a major civil rights movement. In 2007, we should all realize that we are all equal.

Sad sad sad. :cry:

[NorthernSpy]

2. that's because we're getting our asses kicked economically AND we're bogged down militarily...

A certain kind of person feels impotent, and he wants to be the boss of somebody.

And I think that the potential is there for that train to go all the way to the end of the line, if conditions get bad enough. A frustrated, angry majority is a dangerous thing. I put nothing past them.

[rasputin1952]

8. There is much truth to your observation...

Throughout history, when economic collapses were apparent, societal norms and mores fall by the wayside. There is a "need" to blame someone, some group. During the Depression, Blacks, Hispanics and Asians in this country fared far worse than poor whites economically. While very few got out Scott-Free, those of color were blamed for virtually everything that could go wrong.

In an even more horrendous situation, the Nazi's gained power because of economic unrest that brought about a general unrest, that grew into hatred. Jews, Gypsies, Slavs and a host of others became the fodder to fuel the hatred.

Over the past few years, this nation has seen it's wealth squandered and gush up to the highest 1%. Each day, people strive to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table, and they watch others nimbly play stocks, not working, in the traditional sense of the word, but gathering huge amounts of cash on merely being able to manipulate paper and debt.

Thing of it is, it will most likely get much worse before it gets better. We are now some $9 trillion in debt. This nation has been taken to the cleaners, and we have to pay the bill soon...:(

[rusty quoin]

3. Our country's future George Allens

A few white students waved Confederate flags, spewed racial slurs and threw trash directly at several black students at 7:40 a.m. while driving around in the student parking lot,

[Bitwit1234]

4. Correct to a certain extent.

Because people see the United States falling, their jobs falling etc they want to blame some body. They are too damn stupid to place the blame where it belongs, bush and the republicans so what do they do, they pick on people who just happen to be in the minority who they think can't fight back. Outrageous. This type of stuff has got to stop.

If the courts would hold them accountable it would.

[againes654]

6. If the courts would hold them accountable it would.

That would just push it underground, which IMO is more dangerous. Not that the courts should hold them accountable, but that alone won't fix the problem.

I feel like I am watching a horrible horror movie, watching this country go down in flames.

[NorthernSpy]

5. "bow down to me like your ancestors did" (just 20 black students there out of 1,545)

You know what?

I think this is coordinated. Someone is deliberately driving this.

[IndianaJones]

7. yeah...white people. nt.

[Joe_VB]

9. Lancaster Cty is very Repuke...

So this does not surprise me. It's always been there, except now its finally being reported.

[T Wolf]

10. You are talking about the middle of PA - a little fly-over zone in itself.

Not surprised at all. It is puke-country, after all.

[gauguin57]

11. Yep ... "Pennsylvania is Pittsburgh on one end, Philly on the other, and Alabama in the middle"

Yep ... and Lancaster County is definitely in the middle (the "Red T" across the top and down the middle of the state). I think Carville is credited with that phrase.

[mark414]

12. this happened at my high school, about 8 years ago

a little farm town in Southeastern Wisconsin...at that time the town was about 98.5% white with just a small handful of black kids at the school.

we had a bunch of born and raised in wisconsin kids who somehow thought that the south would rise again...thought they were real rednecks but instead just a bunch of dumb hicks.

anyways, they'd always wear their confederate flag t-shirts and belt buckles and fly flags from the back of their pickups (your stereotypical hicks, basically). one kid (an african-american) got tired of always having this shit thrown in his face (it caused a few fights from time to time) and started circulating a petition to get the stars and bars added to the prohibited list of the school dress code.

it started picking up steam, there were more and more and bigger and bigger fights, and finally they called a school wide assembly, announcing the decision to indeed approve the ban by diplomatically using the justification that they could ban anything that caused a distraction.

it's bad enough to have it happen in the south, but am i wrong to think it's even dumber to have it happen in the North, the Union, at the hands of a bunch of Yankees?


just when you have a little hope for forward progress...these idiots keep coming out of the woodwork

[MzNov]

13. I guess it's just a "coincidence" that Bush just visited

Lancaster two days ago.....

:shrug:

[AspenRose]

14. "They" (the racists) have been emboldened as of late.

They've always been around, but they are pushing the envelope all over the country in the aftermath of Jena news coverage. Nooses on campus at the University of Maryland; stealing a CPR training dummy from a fire department, painting it black and hanging it from an overpass in GA, and nooses found in a police locker room and in the bag of a Coast Guard diversity training specialist, are all stories I've seen posted here in the past week or two.

And how could I forget Mr. "hold still nappy head" security guard at the high school lunch room in California?

But no, we don't have a problem with racism in this country. :sarcasm:

[theHandpuppet]

19. Hey, Rose... check out my DU journal

These racist incidients in eastern Maryland have been happening with some frequency for years now but have never caught the attention of the media. I have posted threads about them several times in the past but they got little response here on DU.

Here's a shortcut to one of the threads I posted:
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/theHandpuppet/53

Within this post you'll find links to the other threads I posted about the racist attacks in Maryland. None of these cases had ever been solved and the media has been ignoring what is an apparent pattern of racist attacks in Eastern Maryland, ones which include the burning of historic African-American churches and the vandalism of synagogues. Jena didn't just happen out of the blue. The racism in this country never died -- it was just ignored.

[AspenRose]

20. I will - thanks for sharing that info

I do recall seeing at the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project that some stuff had happened in Waldorf a while back....

[Catherine Vincent]

15. I thought racist crap like this only happened in the South? n/t

[AspenRose]

16. Oh hell no

Indiana is probably the most racist place I've ever experienced, and I grew up in Texas....

[Catherine Vincent]

17. Get over slavery?

"Bow down to me like your ancestors did".-2007

"Thank your grandpa for this shirt!"-2006

And let's not forget about the nooses hung in several areas as a reminder.

[gauguin57]

18. update in today's lancaster paper

There are no words. I thought this was 2007, but perhaps it's 1957.

http://local.lancasteronline.com/4/210550

Warwick: 12 students took part in harassment

Superintendent says district action to be taken and Internet sites being watched; freshman target in racial incident tells of experience

(Lancaster, PA) Sunday News

LITITZ, Pa - Editor's note: Some of the language in this report might be offensive to readers.

Warwick School District Superintendent John George said 12 high school students who were involved in Wednesday's racial threats against minority students were identified by police. ... The incident at Warwick High School involved at least 12 white students harassing minority students with racial epithets and throwing trash at them. Several students also told the Sunday News at week's end that some white students had threatened to bring guns to school.

... the perpetrators, who often wear clothing with Confederate flags and hang out in front of the school, "never started anything violent until Wednesday."

The student said the incident began early in the morning, before school started after "Confederate gang members," who are also students, began throwing paper and candy at him and two of his friends, who are also black. "One of them threw a paper ball at my friend and called him a 'nigger,' " Cora said. "We tried to move away, but they started throwing other things.

"The rednecks said they wanted to bring guns," he said. "They stare at us and give us glares." By the end of Wednesday, he said the "Confederate gang members" wanted to fight minority students.

[aikoaiko]

21. This is clearly a fabricated story because....

...it didn't happen in the South.

:sarcasm:

Just a reminder to all the south-haters, it happens everywhere. And its disgusting, everywhere.

[flashl]

22. All of this is symptomatic of information suppression

Last year, there was an outcry from the minority community after the FBI reported its annual hate crime stats. In response, the FBI sheepishly acknowledged that the report was incomplete.

In the same manner that this administration UNDER REPORTS the economy, it under reports ANY undesirable information. If these stories are bubbling up, then, it means that the hate crimes are WORST than they appear be.

[flashl]

24. Under the radar

Racists beat Black student in Florida

MIAMI—An 18-year old Black student was beaten by racists at Haulover Beach in Miami as he was returning from a party on a nearby island early September 23.

Stephen Barrett, a freshman at Florida International University, was on a boat coming back from the party that he attended with two friends, Christopher Eden and Daniel Cabezas. When the captain told passengers the boat was overloaded, several young men told Barrett to get off. Bystanders said one of the youths told Barrett, “Get off the boat, nigger.”


Racist Social Networking Site is Back

Sporting his trademark star-spangled necktie, Jason "J.T." Ready is familiar to Phoenix, Ariz., residents, law enforcement officers and journalists as a City Council gadfly and oft-quoted member of the anti-immigration Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.

Online, though, Ready is better known to the nearly 2,000 registered users of New Saxon, a newly popular white-supremacist social networking website, as "Viking Son." His self-created New Saxon profile displays photographs of Ready wearing a kilt, donning a bulletproof vest, and scouring the desert for "illegals" through a pair of binoculars. Ready lists his "turn-ons" as "a woman who loves our Race, Kultur, Heritage, History and Future," identifies the racist fantasy novel The Turner Diaries as his favorite book, and describes himself as a big fan of neo-Nazi teen pop duo Prussian Blue.


Video Shows Cop Punching Teen During Arrest - 15-Year-Old Girl Allegedly Resisted Arrest

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- A controversy is brewing in South Florida over a dash-camera video showing a Fort Pierce police officer punching a 15-year-old girl while she is resisting arrest, WPBF News 25 reported.

The tape indicates Fort Pierce police Officer Daniel Gilroy turned on his dash-camera and recorded the arrest of 15-year-old Shelwand Riley, who police said was violating curfew and acting suspiciously. She was allegedly carrying a garbage bag full of new clothes with tags still attached, WPBF reported.

Riley's aunt, Gloria Smith, said the tape shows police brutality and excessive force, even though her niece bit the arresting officer on the arm.

[Swamp Rat]

23. Confederate flags in Lancaster, PA used as symbols of hate and threats of violence.

I regard this as yet more proof that the confederate battle flag is a symbol of hate and not a symbol of "heritage."