Racism rides the bus in 2006

According to the following report, a Louisiana school bus driver has been suspended for allegedly forcing black children to the back of the bus while white children were given their choice of seating. According to witness reports the bus driver allowed many white students to have seats all to themselves while some blacks were forced to stand, or sit on others laps.

COUSHATTA, Louisiana (AP) -- A Louisiana school district suspended a white bus driver while it investigates complaints that she ordered nine black children to sit at the back of the bus.

No previous complaints have been lodged against the driver, who has worked several years for the Red River Parish school district, school Superintendent Kay Easley said Thursday. She refused to reveal the driver's name.

"I'm trying to get all this straight, and settled, so we can all move on," Easley said.

Two mothers, both black, sparked the investigation with a complaint on Monday that their children and the other black children had been ordered to sit in two rows of seats in the rear of the bus.

Source Link

Racism in Southern USA is certainly not new. But when something like this happens it is at least news.

Sometimes I believe parts of the deep south in this country is at least 50 years behind the rest of the world in development, perhaps even human evolution.

Perhaps this bus driver would be happy if there were white only public schools again in the south?

Racism in all forms is the purest ignorance mankind can know.

Other Source Link:

Red River Parish parents upset with handling of bus incident

[edit on 26-8-2006 by UM_Gazz]

When I rode the busses in Elementary School my bus driver only let the 5th graders sit at the back of the bus, apparently because the back of the bus was the coolest place to be. I couldn't wait to one day to be a 5th grader so then I could finally sit at the back of the bus. Seriously the back is where it's at.

Why are these kids moms complaining? The back of the bus is the cool place to be where you could cause the most mischief and goof around due to the extreme distance between you and the driver.

or

Maybe there were problems and some kids had to be seperated to avoid a fight. This seperating looked a lot like segragating due to the colors of the childrens skin and then 2 moms got mad.

When I went to Jr. High down here, most of the blacks chose to sit in the back. There was overcrowding on the bus, sometimes, too, since the bus serviced a certain area. It was mostly because they wanted you to fill up from the back to the front...and the blsck kids came from the same little project, and the white kids came from furthest back road out in 'da boon docks. Most of the white parents were aware of the overcrowding, and would bring their kids to school, themselves.

That being said, some aread down here are still very race conscious. Houma is very open between the races and nationalities, had friends of pretty much any background, and I wasn't all that popular . Asumption and Ascention parishes are known to have race riots, as is Raceland in Lafourche, or at least they still had them 10 years back when I was in Jr. High. Most Terrebonne parish schools had little issues between race.

Originally posted by verfed
Why are these kids moms complaining? The back of the bus is the cool place to be where you could cause the most mischief and goof around due to the extreme distance between you and the driver.

But the kids... ALL the kids... should have the CHOICE.

Read the article:

When school started this month, the white driver told them she had assigned them seats, with the black children at the back of the bus.

This story makes me sick! Like you, UM_Gazz, I can't believe the stuff that happens in this supposedly developed nation. If this is true (they still need to get it 'settled') this woman should be fired and not allowed to drive a bus or work with children again, IMO.

Gazz don't be so quick to judge because two black women accuse a white women of forcing their children to the back of the bus. It is also probable that the bus driver yelled at the black kids, who went home to mommy and had mommy accuse the bus driver of racism to get her fired.

All hearsay if you ask me, but of course anything involving the evil white race inflicting humility on the poor black race must be exploited at all cost, and the accused to be found guilty via media.

Also Verfed makes a good point, when I was in middle school kids fought for the back of the bus, it is where the cool older kids sit while the nerds sit in the front duh!

Also, was there no camera on the bus to show the allegations being brought against this driver? Or should we fire folks, maybe throw em in jail and let a civil suit by NAACP follow simply because a black women says so?

Please, this is no incident with out evidence, which I see none.

Originally posted by Rockpuck
Gazz don't be so quick to judge because two black women accuse a white women of forcing their children to the back of the bus.

These allegations are a bit more serious than you may think if you would read the whole article. More than just a temporary situation.

It starts with seating assignments:

From the CNN article

Early last week, the driver assigned black students to two seats in the back of the bus, Richmond said.

"All nine children were assigned to two seats in the back of the bus and the older ones had to hold the smaller ones in their laps," she said.

The women said their complaints to parish school officials were not immediately addressed.

If these allegations are substantiated, it looks as bad for the parish school officials as it does for the driver. Could be a simple case of apathy. Or perhaps these parents have other motives as some have stated in this thread.

No one has yet disputed any of the allegations. It seems like those involved are conducting some serious damage control.

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
If this is true (they still need to get it 'settled') this woman should be fired and not allowed to drive a bus or work with children again, IMO.

IF this is true, like the article said she has apparently been a bus driver for many years, no complaints until this. And as for firing her, probably yeah, but imposing a nationwide bus and 'children' ban?


[edit on 26-8-2006 by WestPoint23]

I've heard an alternate version by someone that lives near there, though the truth of it I can't attest to:

The seats on the bus are assigned at the beginning of the year. Everyone had seating assignments. They didn't complain about the arrangements then.

At the last minute, there was an addition of some extra children, that were siblings of the ones on the back row. There weren't any extra seats.

When the driver picked up the children, the extras tried to take the already assigned seats of some kids up front, who hadn't been picked up yet. With no place to put them, the driver told the older brothers and sisters to hold their younger siblings on their laps, because there wasn't any room for them.

Was the bus overcrowded and the driver was simply trying to find a awy to seat everybody? Why else would children need be sitting on their fellow peers laps? If so I don't know why the little black kids could be sitting on white kids laps on the back of the bus but maybe the little black kids knew the older black kids better so it would be best for them to be sitting on their laps.

Obviously their are many questions. This may be a cut and dry case of racism but I'm doubting that at this point just from reading that one article. Although it's easily understable the immediate calls of racism because if looked at from the wrong angle this does look very bad.

Unfortunatlely, racism is something that may never be done away with.

One of the good things about living in a small community is that on the school bus...all the kids mingle and get along no matter what the age or race. Too bad more adults can't do that.

Originally posted by WestPoint23
IF this is true, like the article said ...

Yes, as I too said "IF" this is true.

Originally posted by Tom Bedlam
They didn't complain about the arrangements then.

So because the black children didn't complain about being assigned to the back of the bus when it happened, it's not racism? It doesn't matter if they complained about an authority figure's action at the time or not. Assigning ALL the black children and ONLY the black children to the back 2 seats in the bus unless they chose them is a blatant act of racism.

Granted, we don't know the whole story and the kids may have chosen those as their assigned seat, but this story definitely requires investigation.

Geez... I don't know how to feel about this issue, it brings back so many memories.

I just can't believe this type of racism still exists in this day. It's disgusting. The South is not the only place where these types of situations occur, I've been through racist moments just like that here in SAN FRANCISCO.

It's everywhere, not just the South... no matter how far we've come, there will always be those sons of bitches who take it upon themselves to hate someone else because of their skin color.

Yet, you'll note that not even the worst spun articles are saying that the driver assigned ALL black children to the back of the bus. Just the nine. You're inserting "ALL" into the story where it doesn't exist.

For all we know, the original assignments were made alphabetically.

This is Red River Parish...not the Catskills. The chance that there were only nine black children on the bus closely approximates to zero.

The near unexplainable "making the younger ones sit on the older ones' laps" suddenly makes sense if the late-addition children story is true.

The original article posted disturbed me, but like many others here, I didn't want to jump to any conclusions. I've taken the route of looking for more info.

This article sheds some more light on the situation and it sounds like the bus driver made a seating chart which assigned all the black children on the bus to the back seats. It doesn't really matter what her intentions were, it's her actions that count.

Iva Richmond's children, as well as neighbor Janice Williams' four children, were directed to the back of a school bus last week by a white bus driver. Their children are the only blacks who regularly ride Bus 9902.
...

Davis' bus wasn't overcrowded, though, which is why Williams and Richmond sought an explanation for their children being directed to the rear. Richmond's niece, Patricia Sessoms, said she counted students on Davis' bus Monday, and there were 38 on the 55-passenger bus.

Jarvonica Williams, 16, the eldest daughter of Janice Williams, said problems with seating on Davis' bus started on the first day of school. Other students on the bus would extend their legs or place their backpacks so that she, her siblings and Richmond's children could not sit down. Davis did not intervene.

"My daughter came home the first day and said 'Momma, the bus driver made us get out of our seats and to let the white kids sit down.' I said she shouldn't have done that because the seats were not assigned at that time," Janice Williams said.

Once Janice Williams and Richmond addressed the problem with Red River Elementary School Principal Jamie Lawrence, Davis' solution was to assign seats. But her assignments limited the nine children -- and sometimes a 10th one when Richmond's grandson was in the group -- to two seats at the back of the bus.

Red River Parish parents upset with handling of bus incident

In this day and age, anyone who is insensitive enough to direct all the black children to the back of the bus shouldn't be working with children.

From your article:

Davis even made all of the black children get off of the bus so that the white children could be seated in their assigned seats first, Jarvonica Williams claims.
...
White, who has not talked to Davis, said she wonders if Davis' actions were intentional, or the result of her not having transported black children before.

Yeah, it never happened before because she had never transported black children before...

I totally agree she shouldn't be working with children.

If I had kids, I wouldn't want them to have to put up with that kind of crap while travelling to and from school. Unless I was using it as an example of how not to treat people. Children learn from what they see. If they see their bus driver treating black children in a racist manner every day and getting away with it, some of them will think it is acceptable to act that way.

It must be a really tough position to be in. You can either allow people to treat you that way and let the cycle continue or fight against it and have a lot of people assume that you are just looking for something to complain about.

If I had my white children on that bus I'd be outraged. Children don't know racism, they learn it.

2006 and this crap is still going on, it's time to thin the herd!

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
From your article:

Davis even made all of the black children get off of the bus so that the white children could be seated in their assigned seats first, Jarvonica Williams claims.
...
White, who has not talked to Davis, said she wonders if Davis' actions were intentional, or the result of her not having transported black children before.

Yeah, it never happened before because she had never transported black children before...

I totally agree she shouldn't be working with children.

Well, if THAT's the true story, she should be given the boot, and they should look into the other drivers as well.

There are ways to seat them that make more sense, like loading from the back to the front so that there's less blocking in the aisle. But ordering by color is nuts.

Living History

"Y'all better make it light on yourselves and let me have those seats."

Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.

God bless Rosa Parks.

Her spirit will never die.

After reading and re-reading the article and comments, I kind of going to lean on mix feelings about the whole situation.

I live in the south and for somebody to be doing this . . . specially in Louisiana has to be very mentally disturbed or just plain ignorant.

Racism issues in the south are always used for agendas . . .

Specially when one side is always the one that feels taken advantage off . . .

I guess I will wait to see what else comes out of the whole thing before making my final opinion of the issue.