Stay Connected
Atlanta Black Star/Editor's Picks
Editor's PicksLocalNewsParenting

Atlanta Fifth-Graders Ride on Buses with Stripper Poles

Posted byBy Nick Chiles | Published on: CommentsComments (0)

Fifth graders at an Atlanta elementary school got some grown-up lessons on their way back from a field trip last week when a bus company mistakenly picked them up in party buses—complete with stripper poles, fog machine, sound system and even a VIP section.

The 130 students from Morningside Elementary in northeast Atlanta may not have known exactly what the shiny gold poles in the middle of bus were for, but their teachers and parents certainly did. And they want to know how in the hell a bus company could make such a huge error.

We don’t even need to get into the reasons for the mistake—something about the original company hired by the school needing a back-up to get the kids back to the school, but the back-up company not realizing they were picking up kids. (Leading me to wonder how that information was even necessary—why is your default bus, the one you send when you assume you’re picking up a random group of adults, a bus with stripper poles and fog machine? What if you’re going to get a group of church deacons, or even a group of real estate agents?) But all I could think about was Chris Rock’s famous line about the most important job of a dad was to make sure his daughter stayed off the stripper pole.

Please read the rest of this post on MyBrownBaby.com.

Democracy needs journalism it can trust.

This election season, the stakes are higher than usual — and so is the pressure on newsrooms to soften their coverage, stay quiet, or just disappear. Independent reporting, the kind that answers to readers instead of advertisers or political pressure, matters more in a moment like this, not less.

For over 14 years, Atlanta Black Star has stayed independent and reader-funded. We have no corporate owner and no shareholders telling us what to cover or how to cover it. That independence is also our biggest vulnerability: nothing protects it except readers choosing to fund it directly.

Newspaper ad revenue has fallen more than 80% since 2005, and local newsrooms are closing at a rate of roughly two a week nationwide. When outlets go under in a moment like this, it's rarely the independent, reader-funded ones that get to stick around.

We know a request for support isn't why you came here. But without readers choosing to fund this work directly, the depth of reporting we can do at home and abroad shrinks along with everyone else's. If you're not in a position to give, that doesn't change how much we value you as a reader.

If you are able to, a recurring contribution does more for us than a single one-time gift, because it lets us plan the next investigation instead of just the next invoice. It takes about 30 seconds, no long form, no account. Thank you for continuing to support independent journalism and freedom of the press.

Give once Give monthly Support another way

Related Stories

Back to top