black…MYstory

I wonder — if a person were to check the calendars in Paris, Texas, would they all still read “1954″?

The reason I ask is because some of the blatant racial disparities there appear to be very similar to many of the incidents I read about that occurred in the early stages of the Civil Right Era.

I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried. For example:

There was the 19-year-old white man, convicted last July of criminally negligent homicide for killing a 54-year-old black woman and her 3-year-old grandson with his truck, who was sentenced in Paris to probation and required to send an annual Christmas card to the victims’ family.

There are the Paris public schools, which are under investigation by the U.S. Education Department after repeated complaints that administrators discipline black students more frequently, and more harshly, than white students.

But, the next two cases really show the start treatment, by race, that can occur in this town.

And then there is the case that most troubles Cherry and leaders of the Texas NAACP, involving a 14-year-old black freshman, Shaquanda Cotton, who shoved a hall monitor at Paris High School in a dispute over entering the building before the school day had officially begun.

The youth had no prior arrest record, and the hall monitor–a 58-year-old teacher’s aide–was not seriously injured. But Shaquanda was tried in March 2006 in the town’s juvenile court, convicted of “assault on a public servant” and sentenced by Lamar County Judge Chuck Superville to prison for up to 7 years, until she turns 21.

Just three months earlier, Superville sentenced a 14-year-old white girl, convicted of arson for burning down her family’s house, to probation.

No one is excusing the young woman shoving a hall monitor but, the monitor bore no serious injury. But, really, does this transgression warrant 7 years in prison, especially when the same judge tries a case where a white girl burns down a house, on purpose, and that girl is still walking the streets?

Something is rotten in Paris and somebody needs to turn up the heat on this place.

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