For those who currently surf CNN, one of today's stories has to do with racial discord, violence and charges in the town of Jena, Louisiana. The story is linked here and is truly a train wreck of stupidity on many levels. I'd suggest reading it because I won't mass post it but to sum up the relevant points:
~ A group of black kids decide to sit under a tree that the white kids normally hang out under.
~ The white kids hang nooses there which the black kids find there the next day.
~ The white kids responsible are suspended for 3 days
~ Racial tension in the school increases, fights both on and off campus happen
~ The school system has the DA address the school
~ The schools main academic building gets torched, as in 'arson'
~ Six students "reportedly" jump one kid and beat him until he is unconscious
~ The six are arrested and face charges
~ Parents of all the kids say their sons are being railroaded via Jim Crow Justice
So where to start?
The whole thing got touched off because, let's be honest, the kids hanging the nooses were trying to be dicks. Was that racial motivated? Hell yeah, it was as some level. Those kids may have deserved more or less time out of school based on your personal opinion but as an educational administration you know they have rules regarding race relations and common sense that those kids broke. They showed a major lack of judgment in thinking that idea was "cute" or "harmless" in today's social environment. So, I don't have any problem with those kids getting punished and would point out that if it were one of my sons, there would have been some punishment at home that would make a 3 day suspension seem like a vacation.
What happened from that point was where the pure stupidity stepped up. Should those kids have been ostracized in school? That's a debatable social theory depending on whether your pro-enforcement or pro-rehabilitation. I can honestly say that they could expect to be fairly hated when they get off suspension. However, should their actions light off a powder keg with other students who weren't involved? No. And yet, it did. In my estimation it did for 2 reasons. The first is because black culture has not accepted that they are an easy mark when it comes to getting a reaction. The second is that schools and society's do an exceptionally poor job of handling teen boys and violence. Those two thing let 3 stupid kids melt down a whole school.
Look racism is a problem in America. Period. And I know that some people can't accept it but it's not a one sided problem. I'm sorry, I've worked in predominately black environments and in predominately Hispanic environments. The result surprised me because you guys seem to dog each other and, even funnier, you just assumed that I agreed. The irony is that I don't. Sure, the races are different as genetics would tell you but I haven't seen that as any type of limiting factor in any type of human endeavor, much less a sign of superiority. However, that's something I had to learn from experience with individuals because culture sure doesn't teach it.
White culture, for example, seems to say that I'm supposed to help every other culture out because it seems that every other culture needs help and I'm of the culture that's supposed to provide it. That was news to me considering that when my dad left, my mom was making 14k and I was having to hot glue gun the soles back on to my shoes. Still, it seems that "I'm responsible because I'm the man." I also found out that I'm responsible for slavery and I took Texas from the Mexicans who stole it from the Spanish who took it from the Indians. The fact that 1/16 of me is Indian doesn't supposedly void me of the white guilt for the Trail of Tears or Wounded Knee, either. While all of that is fun to learn as a heir apparent to "the man" franchise, I believe that I can correctly assume that several other boys have since learned that they are the heirs to being the "aggrieved black man" or the "downtrodden Latino" or whatever bullshit society is pedaling.
As a result, black culture, from a white perspective, is so predictable that you could almost write a scientific law of universal response: Something like, "Any reference to the KKK, Jim Crow, Slavery or the use of the "N" word by anyone not Black is guaranteed a negative response at twice the energy level expressed and grows exponentially as the number of black recipients of said utterance is increased." Disagree? You think it was a accident that In Die Hard 3 that it was just accepted wisdom that Bruce Willis' character was going to get a serious ass beating, if not die, for wearing a lunch board saying "I hate Niggers?" Why is that? Furthermore, why is that acceptable wisdom? Have you ever stopped to consider the response if you drop a black character in the middle of white America with the counter sign of "I hate Crackers" or Whitey or Jews or whatever? Is that a guaranteed ass beating or death sentence under today's conventional wisdom? Not hardly.
The point is that regardless of how you feel about it, and in today's PC world none the less, all it takes is saying "nigger" and people get wound up past all conventional wisdom and personal responsibility. As a result, they lose the power of initiative because their emotions dictate over their reason, more often than not. Who is the exception to that? The people who define themselves and others as individuals.
Racism will continue to be a problem for one reason: People employ it to define who they are and who other people are because it's easier than being an individual or treating people as individuals. Society, and more specifically their parents, failed these kids in not enforcing that.
The second issue is that society at large has a horrible grasp of what a man is, much less how to raise one, much less how to deal with a immature one. Violence is just one aspect where society fails miserably. Being a man is about understanding your value, your strengths, your weaknesses and how you allow those things to interact with those around you. Today's kids are barely taught to make sound decisions, typically isolated from risk, over protected from consequences and totally uncoached in understanding the power of their actions.
There is a reason that martial arts can often market it's self for teaching responsibility and respect. The reason is that it is incredibly stupid to be disrespectful to a person who is able to break bricks with their head. The interesting factor is that it is typically the person who can break bricks with their head that is the most respectful to the people in the room that pose him no threat for a reason that most people don't get. A teacher is typically the most respectful of the power that he has learned, but he has also learned that the true power is in the choice to not put himself in the position to have to use it because of the damage that it can cause. He understands the consequence to action.
Some kids today need to have their asses tossed around a dojo once or twice to realize that violence is just a tool. It can be effective but it can also run contrary to what you are trying to accomplish. In plain English, kids today see violence as the final step in a confrontation when it isn't. The aftermath of a confrontation still has to be dealt with and eventually the root cause of the confrontation before it is resolved. However, most boys are never taught that so they believe that "kicking ass" will fix the problem. Wrong. That might be a step, but normally there are other things that could be done before, or during, that confrontation that would be better than unchecked aggression. Society, and specifically these kid's parents, have failed to teach them, and possibly understand themselves, that when the only tool you have is a hammer every problem looks like a nail.
When you place this all together the result is what you see. Kids that are in trouble, kids that are in pain, kids that are in discord, a community wrecked, fear mongers circling the wagons and everyone generally unimpressed with the whole thing because it could have been prevented. However, I want to take a second to say that for once in the news, the school system in this seems to have acted responsibly. They alone addressed the issues along each step. They alone took preventive action. In short, they are the only ones I see in the whole thing that tried to defuse things.
Where all of this will go is beyond me but the point that we need to take away from it is this: fixing the problem of racism doesn't lie with the schools. They tried. It lies with society and parenting. We need to better coach our own kids on living in a equal society of individuals and educate them to the nature of their actions, including but not limited to violence.Labels: media, moral relativism, morons, parenting, politics, psa, racism, scary shit, spanking, tragedy |
