Tipsheet

Black University On White Beauty Queen: She's Not Our Skin Color So We Can't Relate To Her

Just last week I was speaking to my mother about a black kid in my grade who was elected prom king at my almost all white high school (approx 1500 kids -- maybe 10 were black). Our prom king -- who was a friend of mine -- was a decent guy but nothing exceptional. I told my mom that if he had been white there was no way he would have won prom king (actually, he admitted this much to me in private). I was correlating this story to Obama's presidential election.

Our black prom king was celebrated and congratulated -- no back-talking or dreaming up racial conspiracy theories. And if anyone tried to pull a "he's black and our school is almost all white so he doesn't represent us nor does he understand us" card, they would have been lambasted. Unfortunately, there is a double standard when it comes to what a white can say and what a black can say. And in this case, when a white girl tries desperately to break down racial barriers -- erected by blacks -- she must retract and apologize. Strange to put it mildly.

BTW: What college educated person says, "She don't need to be sending him no letters"?