You Can't Fight Ignorance With Ignorance

This essay is printed with permission.  It first appeard on her mother's Facebook page.  As Tara Hightower explains, she is an African American VoAg student at Middletown High School.  On Friday, another VoAg student created a serious situation at the school when he was recorded waving a confederate flag and reportedly shouting racial epithets.

My name is Tara Hightower and I am a student who was closely affected by the incident on Friday. 

As a black student who is in Ag (the Vocational Agricultural program at Middletown High School), I was interested in hearing what some of the parents were thinking. Through reading your comments and concerns I felt there was a need for me as a student to reach out to you. I myself am not on social media at the moment, as a personal goal to let myself be free, but I was fully aware of the situation by 7:30 Friday morning. 

As soon as I heard what had happened I was completely devastated and disappointed in his actions. As a person who considers the student a part of my Ag family, I knew he was going to need support although I didn’t agree with what he did. The actions he took on Friday were not because of ignorance or hate towards the non-whites of this community, it was a thoughtless act of stupidity. 

From the start of my first class, everyone was talking about it and I had to bite my tongue because I didn’t want to make the situation escalate more than it already had. I went through two classes and then during my third class one of my fellow Ag students and classmates, who is also black, had to leave the room because she was so frustrated with what happened. 

I then received the message that one of my friends was in the guidance office crying because she was being threatened by other students. I was one of the students who decided we should all go down and get her so she wouldn’t have to feel afraid anymore. We were trying to combat the heat that was coming towards everyone and trying to de-escalate the situation. 

It is unfortunate that had to happen, but shortly after we had a meeting with all of the Advanced Ag students. In our two hour period, we discussed the situation with our class advisors, a few of our security guards, and many of our administrators. During this time we talked about what had exactly happened and how it had affected not only the people in our school but our reputation as a program. 

For years the Ag program has been seen as a group of racists and that is a hard stereotype to be held under. We try our best not to talk about it but to make sure all of our accomplishments raise our program up rather than bring it down. 

We want people to know all of the good we have done for the community and not the unfortunate mistake one of our students displayed. I want to make clear this is not to single out the kids in the Ag program from the rest of the student body, I just want people to be aware of what kids went through from my perspective (I want to let people know I was not aware of the protest Tuesday morning until I read these posts). 

We also talked about how to try and recuperate and how to respond to comments being made to us in the hallways and in class. We were told to not fight and bicker with other students but to tell them that we care and we know what happened was not okay. From what I have read a lot of people were talking about how everyone including the teachers were affected. I know this is true but it wasn’t specifically because of the one student, it was because of how fast the situation escalated and all the students that were crying because of the situation. 

I feel for all of the teachers and students that were affected and I feel as though social media changed the way our town heard the story. I don’t think anyone who posted about it told the true story of what happened.  Mind you, the video shouldn't have been posted to begin with, nor should the situation have occurred. I believe that is what made the situation blow up so fast. As I sit here at 10 pm trying to relay this message I can’t help but think about what social media and ignorant comments can do to a situation. 

There have been many comments by people of the community that have not been bringing us together but breaking us apart. We need to all support each other no matter what.

I think Dr.Martin Luther King said it best when he stated: “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.” That quote to me is truly related to this situation. As a community we are all banded together, we need to all be friends, not acquaintances or enemies. 

Although other people may not be fighting for exactly what you are, everyone needs support. Even the student who committed the act needs support in this time of weakness. You can’t fight ignorance with ignorance, you can only fight it with love. 

We cannot let our peers be alone when they need a shoulder to lean on, we can only raise them up and give them exactly what they need. Because as a society we are all connected in one way or another no matter what, it is truly important we keep those bonds strong. 

As I wrap this up I want to leave you with this: “The time is always right to do what is right” -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 

Thank you so much for listening to what I had to say. I hope this cleared up anything people were wondering about, I wish you love and peace in this time of conflict.