(1) I agree that white parents, no matter how loving and well-intentioned, can not teach a black child everything s/he needs to know about racism. BUT inter-racial sex in the South is not a subtle issue. I grew up in the South and I find it hard to believe that the parents would be so naive as to not have warned him of possible consequences of having relations with a white girl. These people are in the South, not some cushy liberal white suburb where people congratulate themselves for being anti-racist for having made a donation to the NAACP, but have never really had to confront racism. Dixon's parents had to deal with their own racism at some point and certainly the racism of family and neighbors and therefore could not have been ignorant of the issues involved.
(2) Whether the parents warned him or not, how should he have behaved differently? After all, according to Dixon this act was spontaneous. The girl whispered to him during class that she would like to have sex with him and so they snuck off to what they thought was a vacant trailer on the school grounds. If that is indeed the case, what normal seventeen year old boy -hormones raging-could resist such an invitation?
You should see the DA who prosecuted Dixon. Perfect example of a good ole boy. He pretty much admitted in the interview that he had attached the additional charge to the rape charge because he wanted a conviction, even if the rape charge did not stand. They interviewed a couple of the jurors who said they were pretty much obliged to find him guilty of the second charge but that had they known that it carried a ten year sentence they would certainly have voted not guilty on all charges.
-Thomas
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