Black Girl Join National Honor Society in Waxahachie, TX

WAXAHACHIE — A North Texas school district is having four pages of its high school yearbook reprinted to correct a photo caption that identified a student as "Black Girl."

All white students are identified by name in the photograph of Waxahachie High School's chapter of the National Honor Society. The teen identified as "Black Girl" is the only black student in the photo.

The district apologized for the mistake after the yearbooks were distributed. The label apparently was meant to be a placeholder until the yearbook staff could track down the student's name, district spokeswoman Candace Ahlfinger said.

Ahlfinger said today that administrators have asked the publisher to reprint the affected page, its companion page in a two-page layout, and those two pages' back pages.

"We will never be able to minimize this damage, but this will change it so that it is not a constant reminder, so it won't be a forever," Ahlfinger told the Waxahachie Daily Light.

Students will be asked to bring in their yearbooks so the old pages can be torn out and the new ones glued in, Ahlfinger said. The district expects to have the reprinted pages by Wednesday. The last day of school is Thursday.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/3194334

Wow ... just WOW.

Sure would hate to be the one who proofread the yearbook. That is pretty damn sad.

In my yearbook I am referred to as 'fat boy'.

At least it wasn't anything derogatory. :/

I'm with you there.

I can't believe someone actually did that.

As someone that has been a "black girl" her whole life. I don't see what the big deal is.

Hmm .. I suppose no one can offend you (not you specifically, but "one" unless you let them, but I know I would be offended if that happened to me and I was captioned as "Asian girl."

haha, no one knew what I was, as far ethnicity went, I wouldn't be surprised if they had labeled me "mutt".

I did Yearbook in MS and when we didnt know someone name we put captions like that in as placeholders. I think the biggest offense here is that they did not know her name, when a simple request to NHS advisor could have supplied them with the information. I can't see taking offense to "black" and "girl" since I'm both.

Right, well, you'd be silly to take offense to that

As someone who has done layout work, I can actually symapthize with these people... I've labled add placeholders "Dipshit car sales" and stuff like that until I could find the stuff I was looking for, or for a test print, things like that.

There is a thin line between insulting and boneheadedness. This case leans more toward boneheadedness. The moral of the story is to ALWAYS proofread your work.

I think the problem is that instead of labeling her by her race, they should have said 3rd student on the left, female. The fact that she was the only black student showed a lack of sensitivity. The fact that it made it to print was even more hurtful as she obviously accomplished something to be proud of and should have had her name written in instead of a racial label.

It's a visual thing, no harm meant by anyone. It was a way for them to see exactly where she is, instantly. I could just as easily label a person in a color photo as "Loud Shirt" if there's only one person wearing a crazy shirt in the photo. It's no worse a crime than labeling somebody as "Fat Lady" or "Bald Guy". Of course, "Bald Guy" wouldn't make the news...

If I were her, I wouldn't make a big deal out of a visual label. I'd be upset that they didn't track down my name.

Besides, this is just a high school yearbook and kids were doing the layout. It was a silly mistake, and the real damage it did wasn't race-based. In their efforts to make this right (her race doesn't matter, but her name does) they've reprinted a lot of pages, which means starting the press again and then debinding and rebinding a bunch of books. I've worked in printing, and I know how much that stuff costs... yipe!

It's too bad that some folks won't bother to take the books in. She deserves to have her name printed properly. It may be "just a yearbook" to me, but to the kids at the school... well, it's THEIR yearbook.


Gydeon.

Sorry I wasn't more clear, that's what I was saying Gydeon, they should have made more of an effort to track her name down instead of printing the yearbook. No matter what, tearing out pages and pasting replacements in is not the same. And in the future, they might want to use a database using placeholders like unknown student 007p8, and then do a search prior to printing for any places where unknown was found.

Yes, it's this passive racism that hurts us because we don't always notice it. The fact that she was overlooked hints at something deeper (and not necessarily malicious, just ... thoughtless).

I don't think those would be acceptable either.

It really was an insensitive label. Third from the left is just as descriptive. Who doesn't know how to count?

Funny, I don't think "breeder" is an acceptable label, either.

But perhaps I'm just being insensitive to those who feel the need to be insensitive to make a point.

lol black girl lol

Yeah this black dude agrees.

Get over it white folks!
\

Umm, I'm not white and it wasn't right. You can't speak for all of us. Sorry.

Oh, sorry about that. Yes, definitely. These aren't the sort of books that debind and rebind well... it's going to be obvious that it was a repair job. It's going to be the administrators who have to put up that database, though, since the students will be cycling through as they graduate.





Granted, those labels aren't all that nice, but no one makes up special terms and phrases for calling a guy bald. The political correctness police don't swoop in and call you a baldist or anything. People just tend to think that you're a bit of a jerk for making fun of the way the guy looks.

This is why you don't get these labels in the printing industry, unless it's a small shop or something. Even if a customer is a known alcoholic, it would be very bad to hand him a proof sheet with the word "drunkard" printed on it in nice easy-to-read Palatino text. High school kids are forgiven a bit more quickly than adults who run a business...

So... well, I guess that proves your point, Neehai. Better safe than sorry.


Responding to the other posts:

I don't know... I was a nerd as a kid, and a late bloomer to boot. I've been through so many physical/emotional/verbal/public attacks and jokes which were aimed at me personally, that I guess my skin is pretty thick now. If someone makes fun of me nowadays, I just say "jackass" and get on with my life. Everything is so much simpler that way.

Can't go through life taking everything personally. You'll be the one losing all the sleep.


Gydeon.

Well at least they didnt call her white boy.

Talk about blowing things out of proportion. Couldn't this situation be easily reversed?