Ralston Valley [e]Xpress Newspaper

On December 11, 2009, Disney will release its newest princess movie, The Princess and the Frog, the loose film adaptation of E.D. Baker’s book The Frog Princess, during which Princess Tiana will join the pantheon of the immortals, by which I clearly mean the likes of Cinderella, Belle, Snow White, Ariel and the other Disney princesses.

Yet, somehow, in April 2007 (which, incidentally is more than two years before its release) controversy had already begun to develop around the film. The whole conflict was that Tiana, the first black princess in the Disney family, was named Maddy, which connotated a lower-class person. She also worked as a servant in a sort of Cinderella-esque way, which was supposedly racist and politically incorrect.

Why is it that in a supposedly color-blind country we still notice race?

Why is it that any white princess can do low civil service jobs but the second she is black, Asian, Hispanic, or anything besides Caucasian for that matter, she must start off on top. After all, it wouldn’t be politically correct to have a fictional character of a minority race doing manual labor.

But this is not even remotely close to the only example. Take, for instance, the presidential election. You would be hard pressed to find anyone, including most Republicans, who don’t recognize the great accomplishment and step forward having our first black president is. However, the importance race was given in the campaigns and the election was a humongous step backward. Nearly 40 years (give or take a few) have passed since the Civil Rights battles of the 1960s and America is still hooked on race.

We all claim, to reference Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to not judge people by the color of the skin, but by the content of their character, yet we nevertheless seem to be so hung up on that which we pretend to ignore: that silly little thing: race.

At Turner County High School in Ashburn, Ga., students recently held their first ever integrated prom. For years, whites and blacks have conducted separate, not school sponsored proms. But this year, certain senior class officers requested that the school sponsor one, which it did eventually do. This was heralded as a great accomplishment, which indeed it was for the city of Ashburn, but, if one looks at the broader picture, he will see that this exciting bit of news paints a pretty clear picture of race in America.

First and foremost, I wonder why this is the first time an integrated prom has been held. For decades, integration has existed at least relatively peacefully in even those neighborhoods where segregation was once enforced most brutally and fatally. But somehow, a segregated prom has continued to exist for this long, which is, quite frankly, sickening to me.

Second, I have found the impact of this news intriguing. The news is being recognized as some great accomplishment, as though the very idea of integration anywhere is so amazing and progressive. But Turner County High School is far behind the times. They were apparently fast asleep when President Dwight Eisenhower called in the National Guard for forced integration of schools in Little Rock, Ark. or when Rosa Parks sparked a movement to desegregate buses. They must have been somewhere in outer space when the “separate but equal” doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson was finally abolished in America and blacks, whites, Asians, Hispanics, Indians and every other race of people were finally given equal legal rights.

So why are we throwing them a metaphorical parade? I am proud of them for finally getting with the times, but for some reason, I don’t think that Turner County deserves much congratulations. It has taken them until the year 2009 to finally bar their minds of color and America has gone right on supporting them for it. As a country, our minds are still somehow perched defiantly in their own little land that is a disgusting hybrid of 1960s and 2000s mindsets.

On the one hand, we celebrate integration and any belated attempt to reduce prejudice, yet in doing so, we create our own prejudices and engage in our own discrimination. If Princess Maddy had initially been white, but still the same character with the same servant’s job no one would so much as groan a little bit at her situation. Yet when we make her black, as she will be in the movie, it is a politically incorrect hate crime to make her a modern Cinderella. Does this mean that servitude, even in the form of paid work, is acceptable for whites but not blacks? No, it doesn’t. No matter what the color of a person’s skin, he or she is supposedly able to do anything in our society (or so we say). Any man or woman can be a doctor, a pilot, president of the United States, or have a service position, which is, by the way, completely different from what slavery was, in case you were wondering.

We have caught a disease. It is a disease that every civilization since the dawn of time has accepted and allowed to grow. This disease of racism is dangerous, even deadly and yet for centuries man let it build a fortress within his body and his society. In the 1800s, many countries found the antidote, including the good ole’ U.S. of A., but we didn’t quite flush it from our bodies. Its germs are regrouping and it’s going to take a lot more than Penicillin to save us.

The time has passed for us to embrace political correctness or affirmative action programs to save us because in doing so we further alienate every group in our society, both majority and minority. The only hope for us now is that we can move forward and actually become what we always said we were, what Dr. King always told us we should be and what the entirety of our 233 year history as a nation has told us we aren’t: truly colorblind.