And by interesting, I mean as in the proverbial curse.
Racial tensions are nothing new to Deltona. They seem to be bubbling up at Deltona High School. Read the story online at http://beacononlinenews.com/news/daily/2379 . Readers’ comments reveal the level of anxiety, anger and suspicion in the community.
For, it’s not just Deltona High School. Fights and nastiness in the community spill into the school, and problems at school lead to fights on the streets.
Some honest dialog and mediation is needed within Deltona and its schools. Will its leaders dare take the political risk? We’ll see.
In the meantime, my sympathies go to the worried parents and students.
Perhaps the talk of violence and guns and the potential for another Columbine were exaggerated, but there was talk before Columbine and the other horrific school shootings. No one took the talk seriously enough. Many knew who had the guns, but didn’t want to believe students would really walk into their school and shoot other students to death.
That there were a number of deputies on campus Friday morning indicates the school and the Sheriff’s Office took the potential seriously. They did the right thing, and shouldn’t be beaten up for keeping the campus as calm and quiet as possible.
Having been a high-school student in the distant past, I remember how teenagers love drama and tend to exaggerate. Addiction to adrenaline highs is by no means limited to adolescents, however. Anger over past incidents also color one’s perception. Winnowing out the truth is a difficult operation, and failure is fraught with horrendous consequences.
Who can blame parents for wanting to keep their children safe? I would have kept my child home from school Friday. But that’s a short-term fix to an immediate threat, not a solution to the problem.
The opening of the new Orange City high school in the fall will alleviate some of the population pressure and some of the problems at Deltona High, but not all of them, for they are a community problem. It will take a community effort to solve the community problem, and peacemakers, while being blessed from above, are often beaten up down here.
Passed-down racism (on all sides), fear for the future, with unemployment, foreclosures and bankruptcies, the inability to foresee a good future for oneself and one’s children — all these lead to outbursts of violence. So does seeing other people as indifferent, uncaring or just plain mean.
Deltona leaders, parents, students, are you ready to tackle this?
