Jay GreesonThe local storm created by the Ooltewah High School rape last December was big. We remember it, and hopefully, our new school leadership will learn powerful lessons from it.
(Although the news that the school system is just now ready to start the search process for a new superintendent is sad. And the fact that we have a school board as splintered as shattered cord wood makes it worse. Alas, those are columns for another day.)
There's another high school sports story brewing with controversy on the horizon. Rightly or wrongly, the one brewing in Mississippi may be bigger than the Ooltewah nightmare on a national scale.
According to this story, the NAACP is protesting in south Mississippi after a black high school football player had a noose put around his neck and was pulled backward by one or more white students. Yes, a noose. In 2016. Some people are too dumb to live, truthfully.
That's wrong. It's ridiculously wrong and makes you wonder where that kind of obliviousness and angst can be born and nurtured.
We hear frequently about "locker room" culture. Heck, Donald Trump even tried to compare his offensive comments and alleged sexual assaults to random rants among guys before or after athletic events.
Simply put, stupid comments and hateful acts are exactly that, whether they are in a locker room, a board room or restroom.
The "boys will be boys" defense needs to be eliminated. Permanently. Like dinosaurs and $1 cups of coffee, and regardless what some gasbag detective from Sevierville, Tenn., may think, the boys-will-be-boys attitude is at its worst when we see horrifying acts like in Mississippi and with the Ooltewah basketball team.
Make no mistake, using a noose for anything is a long way from some sort of locker-room hijinks. There's a big divide between pranks and potential hate crimes, which is what the NAACP is calling for this to be charged as.
According to the Associated Press story, the NAACP spokesman said the Mississippi sophomore was assaulted by three white players, but the coach - a black man - refuted that, saying it was his understanding that only one white player was responsible.
No white person, myself included, could ever fathom the emotional trauma a black person would experience with having a noose put around his neck. It certainly deserves punishment.
It begs wondering whether, among schools and students, whether they are athletes or brainiacs or somewhere in between, bullies are not the new racists. Think about it.
Power-seeking hatred knew no color in Ooltewah. It knew nothing more than evil in the hundreds of hazing and bullying deaths that have happened in our country alone.
And while we have a lot of folks willing to protest this social issue or that, the collective blind eye we turn toward those victims is horrifying.
The story in Mississippi, even with its obvious racial significance, was met with the deafening silence our local leaders tried with the Ooltewah case.
In truth, it's hardly a surprise the officials in Stone County, Miss., apparently took the "head in the sand" play right out of the Ooltewah and Hamilton County playbook. According to the NAACP spokesman, none of the players accused have been punished beyond being removed from the football team.
Even worse, the family told the NAACP that the Stone County sheriff's department tried to talk them out of pressing charges. Officials from the Stone County school board and the sheriff's department declined to comment or did not return calls.
Man, we can be a mean and hateful society at times. And the only thing that scares me more than that is how downright stupid we can be.
Everyone from the hate-filled juvenile perpetrators to obtuse adults hoping that if we all close our eyes and pretend it didn't happen then it will all go away.
Contact Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com and 423-757-6343.