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["Dan Wilson" <sipacate AT hotmail.com>]

Here is another article written by Africans. Double standards are wrong.

 

http://www.suntimes.co.za/2004/02/01/news/news04.asp

 

An ex-Johannesburg teenager has sparked a fierce debate in the US about race and cultural identity.

Sixteen-year-old Trevor Richards, who moved to the US with his parents six years ago, was suspended from the Westside High School in Omaha, Nebraska, after he nominated himself for a "Distinguished African-American Student of the Year" prize.

It is believed that Richards is the only pupil at Westside to have ever lived in Africa. But, because he is white, he has been accused of "showing disrespect" to black pupils.

He and two friends put up campaign posters showing him making a thumbs-up sign. All three were suspended.

The London Telegraph quoted Scott Rambo, one of Richards' "campaign managers", as saying: "The posters were intended to be satire on the term 'African-American'." But the satire misfired - not least because it was aired on Martin Luther King Jr Day, a holiday marking the black preacher's role in the civil rights struggle.

The website e.thePeople had this posted query: " Trevor is an American who is from Africa. Is there something fundamentally wrong with a school having an award that is strictly limited to a specific race? Would the 'Distinguished White Student Award' be acceptable?"

One commentator called Richards a "neo-Nazi" whose behaviour was akin to "Jew-baiting". Another said Richards would be "more appropriately labeled 'First Generation White (or European) South African American', something completely different and in some ways opposite of 'African American'."

The American Daily said: "It is amazing that Martin Luther King Jr's brave dream of a colour-blind society has degenerated into divisive race-based awards jealously guarded by guilt-ridden liberals and white apologists. Trevor . . deserves praise for pointing out the obvious double standards of race-based policies." - Sunday Times Foreign Desk