PHILADELPHIA (BASN – STR/ITR): Traditionally, June has been known as the month for brides, dads – and grads.

The sight of a parent seeing their child take the next step toward adulthood via graduation is always a signature moment; seeing folks and loved ones beaming with pride at young people achieving a goal would always be a cause for celebration.

But now the script is being twisted in a most sinister manner. Through recent instances across this country where power is ridiculously abused, the most inopportune of moments provide a motive for the crime…

In Florence, South Carolina a mom’s joy was stolen by police.

Shannon Cooper, whose daughter, Christin Iesha Cooper, was among the graduating class at South Florence High School, was taken out in handcuffs – because she cheered too loudly for her daughter.

Informed she had engaged in disorderly conduct by her cheering, instead of that joy of accomplishment, her daughter had to experience the ignominy of her mother being disrespected.

According to accounts in Your Black World and http://www.msnbc.com, the elder Cooper revealed she was “still living in shock,” after the incident. “It all seems like a bad dream, a nightmare of what was to be one of the happiest days of our lives. I cheered for my baby and I got the cuffs.”

Meanwhile, in Ohio, four seniors at a suburban Cincinnati high school were denied their sheepskins because of “excessive cheering” by their guests.

Among this quartet, Anthony Cornist, a star player on the school’s football team, was told by school officials that he must perform 20 hours of community service in exchange for his diploma; due to the behavior of his friends and family. His mother, Traci, echoed Ms. Cooper’s sentiments. “It took away so much from how happy I was,” she told Cincinnati radio station WDBZ.

Instead of a diploma, Anthony got a letter from the principal, Marlon Styles, Jr. who decided extortion was the better point of dehumanization. “I will be holding your diploma in the main office,” the letter said, “due to the excessive cheering your guests displayed during the roll call.”
“I did nothing wrong except walk across the stage,” Anthony said.

Those hours can be split between Anthony and his family, or the senior can perform them all himself.

And of course, young Cornist can’t get anything finalized re a commitment to a college without his diploma.

While Cornist and family consider taking legal action, school officials at Mt. Healthy HS defended rules on cheering as fair so all graduates can be recognized. Recognized or not, how do you justify holding a diploma as ransom because someone cheered too loudly?

These egregious acts speak to something far deadlier to the collective health of Black folks – and poor folks.

With the constant 24/7/365 pressure being exerted upon people to survive, these situations are results of human beings inhumanely thrown into an equation of deflation and degradation; where distinct components of upward mobility are taken to a chop shop of mental misery.

Think about how a parent would sacrifice for a child. There is a woman, Tanya McDowell, who is sitting in a jail cell right now because she didn’t want her son to be buried in an awful public school system. She was arrested and charged in court with “stealing education” – valued at approximately $15, 000.00.

Now because of Shannon Cooper’s arrest, has her life been altered forever? Has her credit rating been affected? Will she be able to vote in her state because she is, in the eyes of the State of South Carolina, a felon?

Meanwhile a waste of seminal fluid like Rick Santorum can rob the State of Pennsylvania of over $70, 000.00 in what was tax monies because the Man Who Called President Obama A Nigger says he “home – schooled” his kids and loop-holed his way to having the state’s Education Department pick up the tab for his duplicity – and of course, no jail time for allegedly doing the same thing.

Will someone be there to evaluate Christin Iesha Cooper’s mental health a decade or so down the road? Will they ask if she has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder? Do they give a damn as to whatever recurring nightmares at the sight of seeing her mom in handcuffs will curtail her aspirations and destroy her self – confidence?

The methodology in this is pure psychological warfare. As the yoke of racism has well strangled a new generation because of the acrimony of a Black man holding the highest elected office in the land, to suppress any momentary relief from societal poison has not only been deemed necessary but mandatory within the framework of the status quo.

Don’t get too high, don’t achieve because even at your moment of success, we can remind you that upward mobility is futile; as old as the Willie Lynch Letter, it remains another way to shorten life spans.

The charge is Jubilation While Black (JWB) where momentary elation; is replaced with probation (if you’re lucky).

Bootstraps – you don’t need no stinkin’ bootstraps! You have work to do – as part of the permanent underclass; the American Untouchables.

Whether as an indentured servant on a sporting field or affected by deliberate efforts to remove the birthright of education by altering the future of a kindergarten student to a lifetime of failure, the mind games inflicted by forces bent on defeating you will never go away.

It may be conceived as a struggle, but the goal in indicting one with JWB – is intent to murder.

michaelingram@blackathlete.com/basneditor@basnnewsroom.com

Always outnumbered…never outgunned.

Copyright (c) Michael – Louis Ingram 2012; all rights reserved.