Back in the day when the Wizard and I went to East Central High School, White Fear was the fear of some dumb ass hick in your study hall targeting you for a 3am lawn job, while drunk on a case of the Beast in their daddy's pickup truck.
Now in 2006, this is White Fear in St. Leon IN. , the home of the Trojans.
How things have changed.
My stepdaughter's middle school is going through a series of bomb scares. In one case some idiot wrote "bom" in one of the bathroom stalls and the whole school was locked down with classes cancelled for hours.
ReplyDeleteSchools are much safer today, thanks to policies that put the Patriot Act to shame but the media whips up any school violence that kids worry about it.
I would bet that the White Fear is really some dork trying to get out of math class.
That's hilarious...
ReplyDeleteLast time there was a panic at East Central (I should know, I went there, which is why I bash Indiana with authority) it was a moral one...
In 1987, someone had spray painted "Satin Rules" with an encircled Star of David in one of the dugouts.
In a chicken egg gambit of stupidity, the school board decided that Satanism was becoming a problem. Lo and Behold: David Toma, super cop, motivational speaker and potty mouth, showed up with all his street cred, and "real" cop stories, to warn us of the dangers of heavy metal, rap and scaring us straight into God.
Example: The stoned young mother who took her baby and stuck it into the oven. Later, I found out this was an episode of Dragnet or such.
We were kids, for fuck sake. Yet, out of the blue, the counselors began accepting "confessions" of satanic allegiance...kids began ratting out other kids...bibles began to appear out of nowhere. Stryper became enormously popular. I paid as little lip service as possible and still maintain my slide into pubescent unpopularity and depression. Kids, even with boobs or beards or cigarette smoking or drugs, are highly susceptible to peer pressure, especially when the "adults" are behind it, and your peers are their enforcers.
How you were cast in these St. Leon Trials hung with you the rest of your time there. The kids labeled "satanic" were usually the same ones with little money, problems at home, trouble relating to others, etc. They were also the same ones who dropped out, or were forced out.
Arthur Miller tells a better tale than I, though the moral was very much the same: Never overestimate the reason of myopic, small town turds with a modicum of power.
for more info on satanic panic
ReplyDeleteplease go out and rent
"Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills"
"Paradise Lost 2: Revelations"
or get the book "Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three"
just in time cause its west memphis three awareness week
yes...we also had the whole thing at ross. if you were different from the football players or cheerleaders in even the slightest way, you were trouble and anything you did needed to be watched.
ReplyDeleteone christmas, 1991 or 92, my brother had given me and my sister necklaces with a moon and star on them. really pretty, actually, and i wish i knew where it was...
anyhow, the assistant principal at the time was a jackass and tried to expel us for wearing them calling us satinic and saying that by wearing them we were violating something or another. he kept on until we actually had to threaten the school with a lawsuit just to get him off our back.
i would hate to see how that school is now, especially because this man has more power within the district now.
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True. My friend reminded me during the game of something my former principal had said: "Boys...its not the same place".
ReplyDeleteNo shit. Demographically, its way different, and I think that has alot to do with it. Sunman and its environs, and Bright and its, were in a not so easy truce back then: Conservative rural vs. Conservative City. Guess the shits really hitting the fan.