It started with a poster. Or, more accurately, with a collection of posters in the window of Western Carolina University’s Department of Intercultural Affairs. February is African-American History Month, and the display aimed to draw attention to the issue of police brutality, especially as it relates to race. 

Some students took offense. In particular, a Facebook post by WCU student and campus EMS Chief Dalton Barrett went the Western North Carolina version of viral, drawing 81 shares and 58 comments.

Many years ago, in a time and a place that seems so far away to me now, I courted a young lady and fancied I was in love. We were really just kids playing at being grown-ups, but we believed we were destined to spend eternity together.

Complicated. Ignorant. Entrenched. It’s easy to come up with words to describe the state of race relations in this country and especially in the South, but some come to mind more easily than others after what happened in Charleston last week. Dylann Storm Roof attended Bible study with black congregants of Emanuel AME Church in Charleston and then summarily gunned down nine of those in the group.

And once again we in this country are forced to confront the ugly reality of racism, compelled to search for ways to turn tragedy into change.

I don’t get it.

I woke up this morning (April 28) and listened to the news. I heard of the overnight chaos and madness ablaze on the streets of Baltimore, as we all have been paying attention to, and for a long time, in many other cities and injustices around the country.

The case against a Haywood County teenager charged with felony cross burning was dismissed two weeks ago.

A Swain County High School junior varsity football player was suspended from school for 10 days and kicked off the team for racially derogatory comments made to a member of the Cherokee JV football team.

A Tuscola football player charged with a felony cross burning targeting a biracial classmate will remain on the team, at least for now.

Ben Greene, a rising junior and running back on the varsity football team, will have to sit out two games and do 25 hours of community service, according to school board policy. He can continue to practice and train with the team and is free to take the field again after sitting out the requisite number of games.

Four teenagers in Haywood County were recently charged with burning a cross in the yard of a biracial classmate.

The act is considered a hate crime, a severe form of intimidation that is classified as a felony. All four students charged with the crime attend Tuscola High School.