I’ve written over the past few days (here and here) about the incident at a South Carolina high school where a school resource officer slammed a sophomore girl to the ground because of her failure to obey an order to stop texting, then to leave the room. My focus has been on the problem of criminalizing student behavior. I haven’t brought up the fact that the girl is black. I’m bringing it up now.
Was race a factor in the level of violence the resource officer used in arresting the girl? There’s no way of knowing for sure. But it’s worth while for each of us to do a gut check. How would we have reacted to the video if the girl had been white? Betts Putnam-Hidalgo, in a comment on my previous post, took the question one step further.
“I wonder what you all would be saying if the policeman were black and the student were white—-such transgressions of societal expectations were cause for lynching and hanging at one time in South Carolina.”
I had to look away after the tenth time I saw the video clip on the news. I listened to the discussion without watching the screen. It was just too painful to see over and over. But to be perfectly honest, I think the scene would have sparked a higher level of visceral outrage in me if it was a black officer slamming a white girl to the ground. I’m not proud of that. It shows an ingrained prejudice on my part. But much as I try to fight against the worst parts of my acculturation, if I pretend my prejudices don’t exist—if I say, in the words of the right wing character Stephen Colbert played on his Comedy Central show, “I don’t see color”—that makes me a party to the myth that we don’t live in a society whose racism is widespread on both personal and institutional levels.
This year, a study was published called Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out, Overpoliced and Underprotected. One of its main findings is the disproportionate number of black girls who are disciplined, suspended and expelled in our schools. We tend to focus on black (or Hispanic) males as being targets of excessive punishment in schools and the outside world, but as this study makes clear, we shouldn’t forget that black girls are targets of similar discrimination.
There’s this from the Department of Education.
Data released by the Department of Education for the 2011–2012 school year reveal that while Black males were suspended more than three times as often as their white counterparts, Black girls were suspended six times as often.
The Black Girls Matter study looks at statistics on discipline, suspensions and expulsions in Boston and New York schools. Here are some of the findings for Boston schools.
• Black girls are disciplined at rate about six times higher than white girls (Black girls make up 28 percent of the schools’ females and 61 percent of the girls disciplined. White girls make up 15 percent of the females and 5 percent of the girls disciplined.)
• Black boys are disciplined at a rate between four and five times higher than white boys.
• Black girls are suspended at rate a bit more than six times higher than white girls.
• Black boys are suspended at a rate about three times higher than white boys.
• No white girls were expelled, so it’s impossible to make a comparison. (The study doesn’t state the number of black girls expelled, but a bit of extrapolation puts that number at about 10.)
• Black boys are expelled at a rate a little under three times higher than white boys.
Though the numbers are a bit different in New York, they’re similar.
Girls are disciplined, suspended and expelled less frequently than boys, but when it happens, the disproportion between black and white girls is higher than between black and white boys.
This article appears in Oct 29 – Nov 4, 2015.
FYI…Mr. Safier http://www.sciencedigest.org/human_races.h…
The historic separation of Human populations has produced great variations in both phycical characterictics and culture amongst us. As bases for racial classification, these differeces are superficial. There are only INDIVIDUAL differences, aptitude, motivation, and citizenship, that differentiate individuals and merit consideration.
We are but ONE “Racially” heterogenous Human population….so that….any schematic notion of race in Human populations becomes arbitrary; used solely for the expression of hate, social and cultural exculsivity, and invidious discrimination.
And here is a black man being attacked by BLM for telling what happened to him, and how he respects the police.
https://arizonadailyindependent.com/2015/11/02/tucson-man-faces-blacklash-for-cop-friendly-facebook-post/
Maybe a more timely movement should be called “Black Wives Matter” as men have destroyed the family that children need and depend upon for moral basis.
What the writer is missing, along with everyone else is the FACT that the girl in question punched the officer first. Now, does that FACT MATTER. Apparently not…..so keep your racist drivel coming. It will only make things worse………….but that is what you want isn’t it……………
Personal responsibility. Make the student white, the officer black, and the student still repeatedly disobeyed orders from the teacher and SRO.
Take a look at the in school protests black and white students held to support the officer.
I don’t have white guilt and I don’t have white privilege. I grew up as a white minority in a large urban city, and I have experienced racism that you only theorize about, in your homogeneous, pathologically altruistic communities. (aka Portland, OR).
In the military, I worked side by side with Americans of all colors and nationalities, and we were all held to the same standard via our occupations, skill level and rank.
Personal responsibility. Write it down and stop making excuses.
It’s about a struggle for power. Whether a person is black, white, hispanic, native or asian, may or may not enter the equation. Power struggles are defused by communication. If the person in power;ie., teacher, parent, police person, knows how or is trained to defuse, he or she shows respect for the other individual by not trying to take all the power. Deference to authority or “personal responsibility” is easy for someone who expects to be treated fairly and with respect. If our entire society always rolled over for authority, we’d lose all our rights.
stryder — your “fact” is a lie, and there is no proof at all for your claim. (if you do have proof, post the video, not a link from some right-wing site) Several students who were in the classroom said that the girl had briefly checked her cell phone and then was sitting quietly. As for “disobedience,” I will repeat what I said before. This is not how a civilized society treats people. We are not automatons, we should think before we react with verbal or physical abuse, and police should be held to a HIGHER standard. That child was no threat to herself, to other students, or to the officer and teacher.. What fascinates me is that the same people who thought Clive Bundy was a hero for “standing up” to the feds (isn’t that “disobedience”?) are now defending throwing a young student across the room for using her cell phone in class. If the difference is not her gender and her race, then why is one celebrated and the other abused?
Personal responsibility is NOT complete deference to authority.
The consequences appeared harsh for this disobedient teenager, but her actions directly and unequivocally caused the consequences. But, I am sure she DINDU-NUFFIN, right?
@Blaze-mason. If you can’t find the step by step videos on where her elbow leaves her personal space and connects with the officer, or where she throws her fist up upwards towards his head, then you just aren’t trying and are a shill.
You talk of a “CIVILIZED SOCIETY”, this includes a disobedient student teenager listening to her teacher, and then, the instructions of a certified school police officer. A civilized society has laws, rules and consequences.
Has anyone here ever left their “SAFE SPACES”? traveled to other countries, ghettos in our own country, played organized sports or served in the military? If not, you don’t live in my reality, or reality in general.
Among the media pundits and social media bloggers and posters there is running a pervasive and insidious discourse that a grieving, 16-year old girl deserved to be assaulted by a 300-lb. man for silently refusing to give up a cell phone; that she acted criminally when she struck him in self defense as he wrapped his huge arm around her throat; that she deserved even worse for daring to be a Black girl who refused to obey the three men who demanded her absolute submission. What we are seeing is more than “just” police brutality and the criminalization of youth, more even than the militarization of our schools that dehumanizes students and sends them into a school-to-prison pipeline. We are seeing – among the predominantly white male individuals claiming the young girl “got what she deserved” – a virulent form of racist misogyny that sees violence against “uppity” Black girls and women as not only justified but necessary to preserve the current authoritarian social order. I am sickened, astounded, outraged, saddened… White supremacy and male supremacy permeate our entire culture. We cannot stand down.
Great job of framing the discussion into fraud. 300 pound man? The girl was black? I only saw one video but I never saw either of those two characteristics. How again did you make it about race?
This President’s actions have you confused, don’t they?
All these people mention personal responsibility and yet don’t think the cop should take personal responsibility for his actions that broke policy.