[color="Blue"](Notice the buck "king" with his nine White "maids". And they want more? )

http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060922/NEWS04/609220320/1002/NEWS

Nearly all white homecoming court upsets some Benton High School students

September 22, 2006

By Mary Jimenez
maryjimenez@gannett.com

Benton High School senior Chrysanthia Stephens believes homecoming court is a popularity contest that needs to be evened up.

"We don't feel like we're being recognized," said Stephens, who is black. She gave voice to her feelings at the Bossier School Board meeting Thursday evening. "It's not just about our class, but for all the young people coming up behind us."

[highlight]Benton High's recent homecoming elections, a school vote for one senior king and nine senior maids, resulted in one black king and nine white maids. It's been the same result the past four years, Stephens said.[/highlight]
[color="blue"](I'm more pissed off with the White whores who voted for a buck five times in a row.)

While homecoming court is not an academic or sports achievement, it is an honor that gives female students an opportunity to be represented at their school, she said.

"We (black students) can be represented playing football, running track or playing basketball, but we can't be represented as cheerleaders or homecoming court" because [highlight]the school is 82 percent white,[/highlight] Stephens said. "We never will."

Stephens was joined at the meeting by a handful of other black students, parents, a pastor and former students. Principal Scott Smith and teacher and Student Council sponsor Michelle France also attended.

Benton High alumnus Barbara Lewis Jenkins, who graduated in 1984, said it was done differently when she attended.

"Every year I was there, we had one white maid and one black and everyone thought that was fair," said Jenkins, who'd also received information from students concerned about how the votes were counted.

Smith told the board votes were counted four times by the Student Council (which has four black students of 25 total) and three teachers.

Homecoming court, cheerleader and other popular vote contests are not School Board issues, but they create the greatest number of calls to the School Board office, Bossier schools Superintendent Ken Kruitoff said.

"Unless you put everyone in the school on the court, someone is going to be unhappy, and that's a fact of life," he said. "It's not that we don't care, we just don't have a policy for it."

School Board President George Finck of Benton, who represents District 3, suggested the parents and pastor meet with Smith then come before the School Board's administrative committee if the issure is not resolved.

District 8 School Board member Kenneth Wiggins of Bossier City thinks it is important that the community not get divided by a black and white issue but also believes it shouldn't be ignored. "If there's a possible situation where students feel that they being negatively treated, then we have to do something to change the situation."