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You need to keep in mind that this was an environment in which the black kids felt they needed to approach the principal of the school in order to find out if they could sit under the tree. So they sit under the tree and some assholes decide it will be funny to hang nooses from it - because they are so insensitive to their own insensitivity that they think humor can be found in the subject of lynchings. This is not rude, insensitive, obnoxious and inappropriate - it is repulsive. Which sets off a chain of events in which the white kids keep getting absolved from their transgressions and finally some black kids are arrested and treated harshly for their crime.
There is racism apparent in this story from the beginning to the end. Anyone who doesn't see that is fooling themselves. And it is apparent from the very beginning when the black kids don't know if they have the right to sit under the tree. I agree that sometimes race is played erroneously in media events like this, but this is not one of them.
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Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce
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