Posted on 12/26/2014 2:14:40 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
In the wake of a grand jury's decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson for the killing of teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, many people are asking a heart-wrenching question: "Why don't black lives matter?"
The answer can be found in our nation's long history of criminalizing youth of color - particularly African-American boys. They have long been demonized as predators to be feared. And this fear of black boys remains woven within the American fabric. We are reminded of it every time there is a headline reporting the death of yet another unarmed black youth.
But the path that ends with a young black man dead in the street begins long before an officer stops a youth. It's the tragic end of a long process that funnels children of color out of school and into the justice system.
It's a process found in schools across the country.
It can be seen in statistics that show black children are expelled at three times the rate of white children for similar instances of misconduct. Even in preschool, black children make up 18 percent of preschool enrollment, but are 42 percent of preschool students suspended once. They are almost half (48 percent) of preschoolers suspended more than once.
Suspensions do not help these children.
Studies show that these children are more likely to drop out of school and enter the justice system. The practice of stationing police officers in schools only brings the justice system into the school with tragic results. Black children are arrested at school and subjected to excessive force at alarming rates.
The lesson black children learn from this experience is clear: They are feared by others. They are predisposed to be criminals. They are worthy of suspicion and excessive force, but little else. It's a lesson that's been taught in Birmingham, Alabama, where police officers stationed in the schools frequently use pepper spray on students.
The students in this predominately African-American school district aren't engaging in criminal behavior, but typical teenage misbehavior: yelling, throwing temper tantrums and getting into school yard fights. These are all things that at one time simply resulted in a trip to the principal's office.
Today, Birmingham school officials say such behavior is criminal. They say the pepper spray is the only recourse these officers, also known as school resource officers, have at their disposal. So they discipline these students with a chemical weapon used on violent criminals. Even students who have done nothing wrong get a taste of it as officers spray the chemical in hallways and lunchrooms, stinging the eyes of bystanders.
This is no way to treat children. It is why the Southern Poverty Law Center will take the Birmingham Police Department to federal court early next year for a trial over these practices.
But this is about much more than the practices in one school district. If we care about the death of Michael Brown and others, we must stop this school-to-prison pipeline that needlessly pushes these children into the justice system. We must stop this system that reinforces for teachers and police officers the myth that black children are inherently dangerous.
Teachers, school resource officers and even the cop on the beat should make every effort to keep young lives on track. This isn't to say children shouldn't be disciplined, only that we shouldn't derail young lives at every opportunity.
Until we end this system that grooms our children for the criminal justice system, we should not be shocked by the increasingly long roll call of black youths killed in encounters with police. We should not be shocked by our bloated prison system filled with young black men. And we should not be shocked by the growing chorus of voices asking why black lives don't seem to matter.
Eff the SPLC.
I'm reminded of it every time I read of another 'knockout game' incident committed by an unarmed black yute.
Blacks learn - (1) to hate whites; (2) that success in school is a ‘white thing’ that should not be valued (back to #1); that they can have a ‘career’ in Food Stamps, Welfare, any criminal undertaking, and be paid by We the People to do so.
Does this give them the satisfaction of a life well lived? No, so they blame others.
just my two-bits.
A call to end criminalization of black youths
they can rob ,assault ,rape and kill people and Police with nothing happening to them ?
IF they are CRIMINALS they should be CRIMINALIZED? Isn’t this a no-brainer?
How bout a call to end black criminals?
Maybe THAT should be the focus.
Ebony seems to not have mastered the difference between cause and effect.
One wonders how she managed to get through High School, much less Law School.
What it really shows is blacks with an attitude are not studying and paying attention in school. They get left behind by the Asians and whites and then get in trouble 3 times as often as a result.
If they followed the straight and narrow path (see the 10 Commandments) they’d not have that problem.
Oh wait... we do...
Got any other suggestions?
Nobody is to blame for “rap” culture except those who embrace it.
Why doesn't the law matter? Why doesn't the truth matter? Why doesn't reason matter? Why doesn't common sense matter?
What a surprise that a shyster from SPLC would write this. /sarc
Just learned of a classmate of my son’s being attacked by 3 black youths on campus..the knockout game..Concussion and fractured eye socket. Luckily caught on campus film
To overcome the criminalizing of black youth the youth must be decriminalized in their behavior and attitudes. It does not avail a solution to simply treat young thugs as angels when they are in fact thugs. Celebrating healthy minded youth of color and aggressively condemning thuggery are essential.
There are countless wonderful young men and women of color who need society’s approval. Celebrating criminal thuggery with music, demonstrations and violence is idiotic.
Raising up youth who are striving to achieve a healthy, strong life of honor and dignity and refusing to dignify ignorance and vulgarity are the proper means of solving this cultural problem.
The teach wrote a short comment suggesting that my daughter's response seemed to be leaning a bit towards "victim blaming."
I told my daughter she should write back to caution the teacher against engaging "thug enabling."
The leftists in this country have to make everyone a victim so they can justify greater government control.
Black Americans have been taught by self-serving leftists that because there was once slavery in parts of the U.S., there is no such thing as liberty.
The truth is, Progressive Leftists are opposed to individual liberty as defined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The only real complaint they have about chattel slavery in America two hundred years ago is that the slaves were privately owned.
But they get orgasmic over the idea of slavery to the state.
Democrats never pass up on opportunity to tell us why enslavement by the state is for our own protection and our own safety, because life under the anarchy that conservatives want to impose is just too risky and dangerous. We can't have any of that inhumane "on-your-own economics" that conservatives advocate.
Thereby proving that you no longer have to be black to be an Uncle Tom.
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