The father of a white girl in rural Alabama is blamed for stirring up racial tensions in the town of Millry for threatening to kill the black players on the local basketball team if they continued to contact his daughter.
Latisha Mitchell, the stepmother of one of the boys who was threatened, said her stepson and the girl were only friends and had exchanged text messages. But it seems that wasn't good enough for the father, who has not been identified.
His clear message to his daughter is no race mixing for you.Thus far, no weapons had been brandished nor any physical altercations taken place. So if such an empty threat causes local school officials and the NAACP to go into crisis mode and hold a public hearing on the incident, there are clearly some longstanding racial problems in that community that are surfacing.
One of the residents said she heard a rumor that the local Ku Klux Klan would be organizing in retaliation. Retaliation for what??
It sounds to me like people are getting a little too worked up over the ignorant comments of one parent.
If every community came to a halt every time a parent said something without thinking, every neighborhood would come to a grinding halt.
The school board has banned the parent from the school grounds. That's a good start. How about getting the local police to chat with this father and see if he is a true menace to society. It seems that threatening to kill a youth would carry some criminal penalty. Why hasn't he been charged?
In all likelihood, the father is a simple-minded guy burdened by his own racism who was shocked to learn that his little girl actually talked to black boys. He started blowing off some steam and stupidly shot off his mouth.
But authorities should make sure that is the case. Because if that father hurts any of those black kids he threatened, the controversy and pain that will visit Millry, Alabama will be immense.
Posted By: DAVID JOHNSON
Sunday, February 6th 2011 at 12:58PM
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