ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 2, 1997 TAG: 9703030073
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
WYTHEVILLE
BLACK STUDENTS say it's bad. Whites - including a school principal - say the extent of the problem has been exaggerated.
Last Sunday, about 40 black citizens filled a section of pews at Franklin Street United Methodist Church. They'd come to talk over their worries about racism at George Wythe High School.
Mostly, it was adults who spoke and, as the meeting wound down, one of them, Robert Green IV, stood and nodded toward the black teen-agers sitting up front.
Things were going to be especially hard on them as these issues got more attention, Green said.
"The spotlight is going to be on you," Green told them. "Make sure you carry yourself proudly. Make sure you obey all the rules. Because they're going to be looking at you with a microscope."
George Wythe High School has been under a media microscope the past couple of weeks - after news broke that 10 white students had been suspended for tying their jacket drawstrings in nooses. Black students and parents complained that the nooses were a racist symbol for lynching.
School officials and parents have fielded a number of calls from TV stations and newspapers, including the Washington Post and The Montel Williams Show. The initial publicity was followed by still more after someone painted a racist statement - "Burn N- on a road near the county school administration offices.
For some, the attention is welcome - a chance to shed light on what they see as serious problems in Wythe County's schools.
"There's going to be somebody out there who wants to help," said Glenda Crockett Eans, a 1980 George Wythe graduate who is advocating change in the schools. "We shouldn't have to be afraid to speak up anymore. We shouldn't have to hide."
For others, the attention is unwelcome.
One parent of a teen who was suspended dismissed the noose-tying as "a fad." Another, Donna Metzger, whose 17-year-old son was suspended, said he was just using the same knots he used for rock climbing. "Basically, they just made a big thing out of nothing," she said. "I'm tired of people creating this undercurrent of racial problems that is really not there."
R.T. Phillips, principal at George Wythe High, says the school has only "minor problems" with racial tension.
"What has been exhibited in the media was not the climate here at George Wythe High School," Phillips said last week. "Our students are fantastic students. They don't deserve this. The majority of students feel that they have good relationships with each other."
But a group of black parents and students, the Concerned Citizens Network, contends that the school has serious problems - and that nothing will change until Phillips and other school officials are willing to admit that.
"He's not been on the other side. He doesn't know how we feel as black people," said Kerry Eans, Concerned Citizens' chairman. "That's why he's saying it's nothing."
Some students who showed up at the group's meeting last Sunday described numerous incidents of racism at the school. They recalled being called "nand seeing black dolls hung from nooses.
"They'll go around and just walk up and say it in your face: 'Nnnone black student said. "It's aggravating."
More generally, many believe there's not much thought given to the needs of black students, who represent only about 10 percent of the school's nearly 600 students.
Kerry Eans recalled visiting George Wythe's guidance department a few months ago and finding there were no catalogs from historically black colleges. After he complained, he said, the school added some.
The group also is concerned that the school, which has about 50 teachers, has only one black teacher and no black administrators.
"That is the issue that has been raised and I'm sure it will be addressed," Phillips said. "We will look at that area and look at it very seriously."
Phillips said the school system has a task force that's working with the Concerned Citizens. He said the schools will develop a "plan of action" in light of the recent controversy, but he wouldn't discuss what issues the plan might address.
"Our offices are open. We are listening to people," Phillips said. "Any issues that they've identified, we'll be glad to look at. If it's a problem, we'll be more than happy to address it."
Beyond dealing with racial problems, Concerned Citizens also wants to reach out to white parents who might have concerns about the schools. Some members of the group say poor and working-class whites don't always get a fair shake in the school system, either.
"We try to make the point: It's not just racism. It's racism - and classism," said Asa Herring, a systems engineer who moved to Wytheville three years ago. "If two kids are in a hassle, the administration will look at who the kids' parents are. That kind of skews who ends up in detention and who doesn't."
School officials say they treat all students fairly, and discipline is handled on a case-by-case basis.
"Every community has problems," Phillips said. "Every school has problems." But he said all the controversy has overshadowed the good things that happen every day at George Wythe. He said The Roanoke Times, for example, recently failed to report that the school's volleyball team had won a regional victory that put it into the state tournament.
He added that the majority of black students he's talked to feel that blacks and whites get along well at the school.
The scrutiny has put many, black and white, on edge. About half of the black students who talked to a Roanoke Times reporter last week asked that their names not be used. Later, Eans called and asked that the rest of the young people's names not be used, either, because their parents were fearful about them being quoted in the newspaper.
One parent of a white student who was suspended gave an interview to The Roanoke Times the week before last, but then called back last week and said he wanted to retract everything he'd said. He said he didn't want his name - and especially his son's name - associated with the controversy.
"The more you write, the more it's done nationally, that's going to hurt the kids," he said. It's better to deal with things quietly, he said.
"Would you like if I came to your house if you had an argument and then I wrote about it?" he asked. "I don't want to see my kid hurt. A lot of people are getting hurt over statements that nobody even knows the facts."
But Eans argues that the only way for the facts to come out is to get things in the open and deal with them.
Eans said Concerned Citizens tried the quiet approach when it formed two years ago. Members went to school officials to ask them to deal with the problems. But, he said, the noose incident showed that little had been done, so black parents felt they had to go public.
"We're not trying to cause any problems for anybody. We're just trying to make it so the kids get good educations. Even the kids who are causing the problems - we're trying to make it so they can get a good education, too."
Now Concerned Citizens sees public debate as the way to move forward and change things for the better.
It won't be easy, Eans said. "It's going to get worse before it gets better," he said to start the group's meeting last week. "But things will get better."
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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