Why I have opened the window!

Amerykah has turned a corner and we should all turn with it. I have thoughts ideas and suggestions but I also have patience and desire for us to be whole and one. I have been speaking a lot lately of the human condition and the generations of Black Americans. i will entertain any and all conversation as long as we can be respectful and grown up. Let the healing begin......

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Cotton pickin mind!!!!!!





Can anybody help me understand?

A grammar school Black history event was recently canceled in Hattiesburg Mississippi. Lillie Burney Elementary school had planned “Cotton picking day” for some of their students. The day included a trip to an actual cotton field where the children, dressed as slaves, would spend the afternoon picking cotton.


I feel the need to type that again. The children of this predominantly black school were going to be taken out to an actual cotton field dressed as slaves in rags and overalls and were going to pick cotton that afternoon.

Yes it does not sound any better the second time you read it does it? When the story showed up in my mailbox I read it three times. I sat for fifteen minutes and read it again. I asked one of my partners, who I think is a much more fare and balanced thinker than I am, to explain anyway this could be a good thing. He instead turned the TV up and kept watching his movie.


The only reason the day was canceled was because a parent read his son’s February calendar from school and “cotton picking day” didn’t seem to right to him either. After a few calls to the school the Principal went to the black history committee, made up of teachers in the school, and it was decided that the day should be changed to career day instead. Cotton picking day!

The school superintendent stood by the principal’s decision to have the day and later to cancel the day.



Cotton picking day!!!!


3 comments:

Reginald Harris said...

I have to say that I've seen and picked a small amount of real cotton, and it was an educational experience for me. Just touching actual cotton (surprisingly scratchy) and trying to get it out of the boll (difficult) helped me to better understand how horrible slavery was. I wasn't out there half a day, and I was an adult. Bringing in some cotton for the kids to see and touch, I can understand. Sending them out to the fields...no.

I shudder to think what they're going to do when they study WW II and the Holocaust

CC Solomon said...

Soo, I get the whole get a feel for history thing but will the kids get anything out of that besides a feeling of humiliation? Glad it was canceled. I read a fictional book where people voluntarily signed up for the slave experience. Of course the book was a HORROR book!

JNez said...

that is just ridiculous. the outrage is justifiable.