Well, speaking of outrage:
To avoid Constance McMillen bringing a female date to her prom, the teen was sent to a “fake prom” while the rest of her class partied at a secret location at an event organized by parents.
Let’s see what led to this. Itawamba County School District in Mississippi was going to have a prom. Constance McMillen wanted to bring her girlfriend to the prom. Consequently, school cancels the prom. The ACLU sues. the court rules on the side of McMilllen, but gives the school a pass because some parents organized an alternative prom that she could attend.
And that’s the last you heard of the story. Turns out, it got even more sinister:
“They had two proms and I was only invited to one of them,” McMillen says. “The one that I went to had seven people there, and everyone went to the other one I wasn’t invited to.”
(The ironic thing is that the alternative prom she was invited and sent to was at the country club.)
Sound familiar? Of course, the two-prom tradition goes back a ways. A long ways back to 2001 Georgia:
Although most of the teens have gone to school together since kindergarten, this evening’s fest will mark the first time black and white students have danced together in a formal setting.
Until now, this town had held to a tradition of two separate proms that were organized as private functions and segregated along racial lines.
But tonight’s unified event — the result of a 2-to-1 vote by the seniors themselves — hints at the final throes of a dual-prom tradition that was once ubiquitous in the deep South, but today only lingers in a handful of isolated counties.
What’s interesting about these two stories is, eight years apart, they have one other thing in common, some kind of defense that people want to be separated. Guess which of these goes with which story:
Two students with learning difficulties were among the seven people at the country club event, McMillen recalls. “They had the time of their lives,” McMillen says. “That’s the one good thing that come out of this, [these kids] didn’t have to worry about people making fun of them [at their prom].”
AND:
What few outsiders seem to realize, she says, is that there’s a difference between voluntary segregation and discrimination.
“I just think they’d be happier if they kept them separate,” she says. “But if they’re the ones who want to do it, I’m sure they’ll get along.”
Some good news, though. Derrick Martin, in Cochran, Georgia, will be allowed to bring his boyfriend to the prom. He knows he’ll get attention, and said, “I’ll take out insurance on my tux.”
“With our town being so small and country, it’s a very big thing,” a fellow senior, Errin Lucas, said. “It’s unexpected, but I’m glad. We have to move forward.”
Fuck yeah.
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