During a Greek Week fraternity retreat prior to start of classes this past semester at the University of Mississippi, a student at the retreat ate a banana, and finding no trash receptacle close by, put the banana peel in a tree rather than throw it on the ground. Three black students came upon the banana peel in the tree and immediately cried Racism! The University investigated, canceled the fraternity retreat, and even though the culprit came forth and admitted placing the banana peel in the tree and the reason for his doing so, the lack of a trash receptacle, it did not matter. Racism is racism, intended or not.

To some it’s just banana peel
To others it is how they feel
When seeing one just hanging in a tree
Reminds them of the bad old days
When lynch mobs laughed to see the sways
Of Negro bodies that yearned to be free
They say the sight of yellow peels
In trees are triggers that reveals
The racism that’s in each white man’s heart
It matters not the clear intent
There’s no such thing as innocent
By such small signs is how the lynchings start
So there you have it, in the main
What whitey does will always pain
And if you’re white they won’t give you a pass
They always see a racist plot
In words or peels, intent or not
You’re enemy to the large victim class