News from Winston Salem – Tony Hooker sends word of two interesting stories from Winston Salem. In one, there was a poignant class reunion of what would have been the Class of 1972 of Atkins High School. “Would have been,” because Atkins, a black high school, was closed abruptly two weeks before school opened in 1971 as part of Winston Salem’s integration plan, and what would have been the Atkins senior class was distributed to other schools across the city. You don’t have to lament the passing of segregation to see that integration, or at least the transition to integration, especially when done poorly and with little apparent regard for the people treated as integratees, also had some costs.
The other article discusses a police shooting that did not lead to a racial conflict, at least in part because both the police officer and his 14 year old victim were black. The shooting appears to have been accidental, but, the columnist observes, “seeing beyond race is always a tricky matter.”
Weaver [the officer involved in the shooting] is also named in a lawsuit filed against the city last June by a white former officer, Charlotte Disher, who alleges that the police department holds white officers to a higher standard in cases alleging excessive use of force. She was fired after she used pepper spray to defend herself, her lawsuit says. Weaver was Disher’s boss.
Weaver is on administrative leave. “Basically,” said a local County Commissioner, “it’s hard to believe a black officer would have deliberately shot a youth.”
Does this imply that it’s easier for him to believe a white officer would have? I don’t know.
