The sinful tech of hair coloring? » « I DON’T KNOW

Those dangerous black children at Spring Valley High School

What are you doing reading me about that incident? Go read Sikivu Hutchinson.

Whenever there’s a black girl on a school campus wielding a dangerous weapon like a cell phone, white macho can always be counted on to come to civilization’s rescue with the full force of fascist violence. These days, unarmed black children rank higher than mass murderers with semi-automatic weapons as public enemy number one on American school campuses.

Now there’s an interesting contrast. We can ban cell phones, but we are somehow incapable of regulating those semi-automatic weapons even a teensy-tiny bit. A black girl takes out a cell phone and a policeman slams her to the floor and beats her up, a white boy murders nine people and the police take him to Burger King. It’s almost as if we aren’t seeing appropriate responses to the danger or severity of the crime, but instead the police are reacting to the color of their skin.

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Comments

  1. says

    What sort of a school is it, if it has teachers and authorities who are responsible, do not know how to talk to a child?
    What kinda police officer is that when he cannot negotiate and reason with a kid… I mean ‘a kid’?
    Can we trust that officer to negotiate with a hostage taker? God forbid, he did not shoot that kid right in front of other kids in that class. That idiot officer’s job is to protect the kids and the school property. None of those were in peril. This is simply frustrating. Beat and shoot policy seems to taking over this nation.

  3. Becca Stareyes says

    Cardinal Shrew @ 2

    Yeah. I support giving a mass murderer food if he is hungry and if fast food is the only option, send an officer out for a burger and fries.

    But it is a clear double standard. We follow the law and ethical treatment of people for Dylan Roof, but not for a high school student being a bit of a pain. It’s not just a matter of the police being brutal, it’s police making calls to use brutality against some people and not others*.

    (My personal take is for cops (well, everyone, but especially authority figures) to treat people as well as they can. So that means feed Roof, and find a way to deal with teenagers being frustrating that does not involve physical assault, for fuck’s sake.)

    * And in no way related to an actual threat. Neither was an active threat, and Roof had been an active threat and might still be.

  5. says

    Yes, I agree that was nitpicking Cardinal Shrew. And I’d like to explain why. It comes down to the situation we’re dealing with. We’re talking about yet another example of violence against black bodies by an agent of the state. This shit has been going on for centuries. Black people have been raped, beaten, bought, sold, traded, denied all human rights and more. This did not stop with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The United States is a country that was built for white people, on the backs of people of color (blacks and Indians). The systems and institutions that were set up were for the benefit of white people. The institutions today-socially, politically, economically-benefit white people to first and foremost. People of Color get the scraps. The entire US is built on a culture of white supremacy.

    So when I see an example of an agent of the state terrorizing a black child-again-the important thing for me is to express my outrage and criticize the culture (for the bazillionth time) that allows such a horrific event to occur. The less-than-least important thing for me to do is niggle over something that is ultimately meaningless. It’s meaningless bc whether or not Roof was taken to Burger King or was brought Burger King doesn’t change the fact that he was treated better than a black girl in high school. And by “treated better”, I’m not referring to the fact that he was given food to eat (he should get that). I’m talking about the fact that a white man who killed 9 people did not face police brutality, but a teenaged black girl who had her phone out in class *did*!

    Speaking of that story- THAT COP HAS BEEN FIRED.

    Yes, I’m shouting. Bc this is one of the outcomes I wanted. I also want him charged and tried and convicted. I won’t hold my breath on that however, bc while there are more police officers being charged for shootings than ever before, charging an officer doesn’t equate to that officer being convicted. Plus, the number of officers who have been charged is pathetically low compared to how many have killed civilians.

  6. says

    And of course, sheriff Leon Lott, the teacher of the class, and the school administration support the actions of Officer Fuckface:

    He noted that the “school administrator was African-American,” presumably to shield his department from allegations of racism.

    Students’ “education was put on hold while this disruptive student had to be dealt with,” Lott accused, not suggesting alternative methods of counseling her. “She prevented teachers from teaching and students from learning.”

    Officer Fields “was asked to remove her from class,” he said.

    “The teacher and school administrator both support the actions of Ben Fields,” Lott said, adding that they stated “he did not use excessive force.”

    A “third video shows her striking him,” Lott said, noting “he was allowed to put his hands on her,” but “should not have thrown the student.”

    I haven’t seen this third video. I’ll look around for it. But even IF a 16 year old girl struck an adult police officer it does not justify his use of force. If an adult police officer cannot deal with being hit by a 16 year old girl without using excessive force, then maybe he needs to go find a different job.
    http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/davidbadash/sheriff_lott_fields

  7. qwints says

    Bad post making a good point.

    1) The police fed Dylan Roof argument needs to go away. Police offer food to people they’re interrogating.
    2) Guns are more tightly regulated than cell phones in high school.
    3) Just like Eric Garner, the underlying offense isn’t the motive for the police to attack. Failure to instantly obey is.

    Also, there’s good news. “Spring Valley High Officer Ben Fields fired”

  8. says

    It was horrifying to read so many tweets and comments blaming the student for not obeying the cop, as if somehow that justified that amount of force. Also horrifying? How none of them were even questioning having the police called in for what is a comparatively minor school disciplinary matter.

  9. Cardinal Shrew says

    Tony #5
    I only pointed out the snopes article because I think most of the tentacled horde that frequent this blog appreciate and come to expect accuracy. It is of no consequence to the overall point of the post. My pedantic nature got the best of me and I looked at the detail rather than the bigger picture/ overall message. I did not mean to take to focus from the fact there is clearly a gigantic, centuries old, horrible double standard. If he had been a black man they would have shot him then and there. If by some miracle he had made it back to the station they would have let him starve. If the girl had been white, his actions would have been different.

    It is good that he has been fired it would be better if he gets charged.

  10. Bernard Bumner says

    Leaving aside the racism that means that the victim of this brutality is much more likely to be non-white, how is this deemed to be an appropriate reaction? Not just in a school, not just to a child – although they clearly aggravate the situation. How can other officials and law enforcement officers look as this and not recognise the disproportionality of meeting nonviolent (or even trivially violent) disobedience with such force?

    If you believe it is appropriate to beat up a child for possession of a phone and for disobeying or lashing out at the police, then it is not difficult to see how you might imagine that it is necessary to shoot adults for resisting authority. For that to be the case, the culture of policing must be rotten from bottom to top. Once again, and even with authority figures demonstrating their lack of fitness for office by showing public support for his actions, I predict that nothing good will come of this, other than for one bad apple to be fired. There will be no examination of the systemic problems which enabled him to act.

  11. moarscienceplz says

    It’s almost EXACTLY as if we aren’t seeing appropriate responses to the danger or severity of the crime, but instead the police are reacting to the color of their skin.

    FIFY

  12. slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says

    no mention of misogyny? The policeman was hit by a 16 yo girl, who he then assaults and drags forcibly out of the classroom. Regardless of their relative skin shades, sexism and ageism are also major issues. Firing the guy is the least they could do to reprimand him.
    ack
    yesterday, I saw some lame retconning of his actions, [paraphrasing] “he not racist, he has a POC girlfriend”, with strong implication that a POC girlfriend absolved him of racism so the girl got violent first, and the video was just his reasonable response. [referring to Don Lemon’s recap, where he said, “video did not show the very beginning of the altercation. We need more info. I can’t make a judgement without more info, We need more of the story.”] pffft

  13. Vivec says

    Gotta love the way a lot of media is, like always, characterizing the victim as a violent adult and not a teenage high schooler being attacked by someone decades their senior.

    After all, gotta keep up that idea that black people of any age are violent supervillains who attack cops on sight and bullrush armed police against any concept of self-preservation.

  14. busterggi says

    hey the cop can’t help it – he’s an authoritative racist prick doing what comes naturally to him.

  15. says

    Students’ “education was put on hold while this disruptive student had to be dealt with,” Lott accused, not suggesting alternative methods of counseling her. “She prevented teachers from teaching and students from learning.”

    She prevented teachers from teaching? SHE?
    Fuck that shit. If as a teacher you can only think of having a grown man assault a teenage girl as a response to her being “disruptive”, you have failed. As a teacher, as an adult, as a human being.

    slithey tove
    The term you’RE looking for is Misogynoir: racialised misogyny.

  17. justanotherguy says

    The student disobeyed the teacher and deserved to be removed from the classroom. After viewing the video I think the police officer used too much force. He plainly lost his cool when the student hit him while he was trying to remove her.

  18. smrnda says

    “But even IF a 16 year old girl struck an adult police officer it does not justify his use of force. If an adult police officer cannot deal with being hit by a 16 year old girl without using excessive force, then maybe he needs to go find a different job”

    I totally agree @Tony. But the problem is the mentality of cops. Their mentality is that the moment you fail to be as submissive as they want you to be they’ve got a green light for the use of any violence they want, especially for black people who can even be submissive but not submissive *enough.* Even if the cop uses force first, the slightest resistance can give them the OK for excessive force, since I don’t think cops believe *any* level of force is excessive once they feel they are being ‘disrespected’ (note that this means cops have exactly the same mentality of the ‘thugs’ they view themselves as protecting the public from) . In an ideal world, a cop (who is far larger than a child) would take a hit and deal with it, but those aren’t the people who are cops, which is why I think that we need to more or less scrap the whole police system and start over.

  19. smrnda says

    @Tony

    Thanks for the link. No surprise the officer feels no guilt. He’s a racist prick and quite likely a sociopath.

  20. says

    smrnda

    Their mentality is that the moment you fail to be as submissive as they want you to be they’ve got a green light for the use of any violence they want, especially for black people who can even be submissive but not submissive *enough.*

    I’ve written my more lengthy thoughts on this punishment mentality over at School of Doubt. I hope PZ will forgive me the self-plugging as it is relevant ot the discussion

  21. says

    JJ831 @16:
    You probably missed it, but I did include a link to an article talking about the cop being fired in my comment @5. He’s fired the cop, yes, but he still stands by his victim blaming comments.

    ****
    smrnda @18:

    But the problem is the mentality of cops.

    Which itself is indicative of a larger problem in society-a culture of authoritarianism.

  23. madscientist says

    Of course they’ll beat anyone with a phone. Those videos made on phones have shown some cops to be liars and villains on so many occasions. Don’t you worry – they’ll be shooting any witnesses with phones before long.

  26. Doc Bill says

    The teacher lost control of the situation. In my day it was about chewing gum or passing notes. Same level of “disruption.” Calling the administrator was a sign of petulance by the teacher. (“I’ll show her who’s boss.) Where do they get these teachers? But the administrator calling the cop is a page out of the Clock Boy book where a simple situation was blown all out of proportion.

    Yes, the girl did flail around but only after the cop grabbed her. What’s the girl supposed to do, sit there and be grabbed? To suggest that the cop was in any way in danger from this girl is ludicrous. If that was really the case then Barney Fife should have resigned out of shame.

    However, what isn’t being discussed is the petulant way the cop arrested a second girl in the class for being quite upset at what was going on in front of her eyes. Yes, she was upset! Then the cop allegedly threatened her, “You want some of this?” before she turned around to be handcuffed.

    In my day we called them pigs and it appears that the species hasn’t evolved very much since then.

  27. smrnda says

    I’m also going to state that, if you have cops in a school, the students’ right to record the cops AND have the means on them to do so must be defended. After this incident, I wouldn’t be surprised if the *distraction of cell phone* becomes a big deal among people keen on making sure no evidence of officer misconduct exists in the first place.

    Also, why are school resource officers cops with commando mentalities? Shouldn’t we maybe have social workers of some kind for dealing with these issues?

  28. says

    This is what the school to prison pipeline looks like in real time.

    https://www.aclu.org/fact-sheet/what-school-prison-pipeline

    Glad to know the cop was fired but he should also be prosecuted and sued. In a more just world his chain of command and the school district would be held accountable for the ineffective policies/resources/training that led to this. And the school administration and the teacher would be held accountable for the way they handled the situation.

    Though this school does not seem to fit the mold of the typical failing school (at least not on the surface) this student was most definitely failed by the system.

    Spring Valley Named One of America’s Most Academically Challenging High Schools (Again!)

  29. Onamission5 says

    The officer who assaulted the teenaged girl in her classroom has, apparently, battered other members of the public in the past, including an army medic in uniform at his home, and the medic’s spouse as well.

  30. Artor says

    For those fascist fucktards who think that the skinny girl’s striking the cop justifies overwhelming brutality in response: Fuck off and die, asshole. I’m not nearly as large as Officer Slam, but if a 16 year-old girl who is not a star athlete were to punch me anywhere other than the nose or the nads, I would barely notice. Her hand would hurt more than I would. If a massively ‘roided officer cannot handle a little girl peacefully, he should never be allowed to wear a badge.

  31. laurentweppe says

    A black girl takes out a cell phone and a policeman slams her to the floor and beats her up, a white boy murders nine people and the police take him to Burger King.

    Well, I think the solution is clear: a Black teenaged girl must murder nine white people in a Burger King with a cell-phone for the Powers that Be to take mass shootings seriously.

  32. says

    Police should never be used for class discipline. There was no police matter to be dealt with here. Even entering the room and addressing the student was excessive use of police power.

  33. says

    Artor @30:

    For those fascist fucktards who think that the skinny girl’s striking the cop justifies overwhelming brutality in response:

    Do you think you could insult them without the ableism, please? You’ve been around here long enough to know that’s not cool.

  34. F.O. says

    Glaring racism and police brutality aside, WTF is a cop doing in a classroom?
    How do you even get t that point? Is it normal in the US?

    Teacher *fail*.
    Are these the kind of people we entrust our children to?
    Why is being a teacher the last option for those who can’t work elsewhere?

  35. says

    F.O. @34:

    Glaring racism and police brutality aside, WTF is a cop doing in a classroom?

    Interestingly, I read an article on just that subject earlier today. Here you go-
    This article gives some backstory on your question.
    (excerpt)

    The 1990s-era “tough on crime” movement that encouraged educators to place local police inside schools has been under increasing scrutiny in the last five years, as these policies disproportionately impact students of color and allegedly criminalize adolescent behavior. But an uneasy expansion of the programs has taken place even under the Obama administration, despite the lack of consensus that they improve school safety.

    Concerns about such programs have raised enough concern for the nation’s highest education authority, the US Department of Education, to investigate.

    Statistics culled by investigators at the Office of Civil Rights found black students were disproportionately arrested or referred to law enforcement at school. In 2014, the department found 260,000 students of America’s 49 million were referred to police. Black student represented 27% of law enforcement referrals, despite making up only 16% of enrollment. White students, meanwhile, comprised 41% of referrals, but 51% of enrollment.

    Even the Justice Department has taken notice , suing a few school districts that routinely used police to enforce disciplinary infractions. “A routine school disciplinary infraction should land a student in the principal’s office, not in a police precinct,” attorney general Eric Holder said last January.

    In just the last 12 months, school resource officers have been involved in several high-profile use-of-force incidents.

    In Colorado Springs, an officer punched a 15-year-old girl in the face when trying to break up a fight. Police said the force was justified and returned the officer to his job at the high school. The two students involved were ticketed and suspended.

    An officer in Kentucky punched a 13-year-old student in the face in the cafeteria in front a large portion of the school (including teachers) for allegedly cutting the lunch line. The officer arrested the student on menacing and resisting arrest charges. The next day the officer returned, placed a different 13-year-old in a chokehold until he lost consciousness, handcuffed the student, kept him out of class and then drove him home.

    School district officials said the punching incident was, “in front of everyone. It was in the cafeteria, so we were aware of it”. Asked by local reporters why the school resource officer wasn’t immediately removed, the spokesman refused to comment, and said he didn’t know how such incidents were investigated. The officer’s supervisor was also apparently shown a video of the incident, but did nothing to prevent the officer’s return the next day.

    Even before the officer punched the student in the face, community members criticized his behavior. He was named in a civil lawsuit alleging he and three other police officers physically and verbally abused children at a summer camp program called the Gentleman’s Academy, according to WLKY .

    “I worked with, I think, five SROs, and I would say four of the five were effective, and one in particular had that very quick trigger,” said Spencer Weiler, an education professor at Northern Colorado University. He was a middle school administrator and teacher for more than 14 years before becoming a researcher who studied school resource officers. Weiler described an incident where a student got “belligerent” with an officer.

    “Within seconds, the SRO had this student face down in the countertop in the front office, and in handcuffs, and I was like, ‘What is going on? Why is this person reacting this way?’” said Weiler. “We had a conversation with him after the fact.”

    The education department’s study counting arrests is one of the most comprehensive. Research into the effectiveness of SROs has been criticized as “limited”, both by the small number of studies and for lack of rigor, according to a 2013 Congressional Research Service report.

    Meanwhile, millions in federal grants have flowed to the programs.

    “Nobody knows exactly how many officers are in schools,” said Jordan. The best estimates of roughly 19,000 is from an 8-year-old Bureau of Justice Statistics report.

    Over the last two decades, Democrats have been ardent pushers of SRO programs.

    After shooters at Columbine high school in Colorado killed 13 people and injured 20 , president Bill Clinton and congressional lawmakers quickly dedicated an initial round of funding to Cops in Schools, or Cops grants.

    The number of positions that program created is a best guess – in 2004 the National Association of School Resource Officers polled attendees of its national conference and found 45% of about 19,900 had their positions funded with the help of federal grants. That program handed out $753m before it was defunded in 2005, under Republican President George W Bush. The Richland County Sheriff’s Department is a beneficiary of these funds, according to Lott, helping pay for 87 student resource officers in the county.

    Before it was cut, Democrats came to the defense of Cops grants, including gun control advocates such as New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer.

    “Thanks to Cops, people feel safer with their children on the streets today,” Schumer said in a press release in May 2004, the National Review reported . “But now the Administration has proposed ending the program and taking away funding to hire thousands of police officers just when they are needed most. Why the Administration would want to rip a hole in that sense of security by slashing COPS funding is beyond me.”

    Even the Obama administration provided millions to place cops in schools. In the wake of the massacre of 20 people in an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, the Justice Department pledged $45m to fund 356 new school resource officer positions , fulfilling a call by the National Rifle Association to put more “good guys” with guns in schools.

    Many have cited Columbine as the beginning of the SRO era. While funding tied to the event undoubtedly expanded the ranks, it appears the movement was well underway before the massacre. In fact, an armed deputy sheriff was already assigned to Columbine high school when the shooting happened .

    By 1991, enough school resource officers were in the field that a specialized police association was founded, the National Association of School Resource Officers. By 1997 (two years before Columbine), there were already an estimated 12,300 school resource officers on campus, according to the Congressional Research Service.

  36. F.O. says

    Thanks Tony, interesting (and disturbing) read.
    Am surprised that this was pushed by Democrats.

  37. Bernard Bumner says

    The documentary Kids for Cash also looks at some of the mechanisms and consequences of the increased tendency to brutalise and criminalise children for relatively trivial transgressions. In that particular case, the victims shown were mainly underprivileged white families, but the point stands.

  38. smrnda says

    “Thanks to Cops, people feel safer with their children on the streets today,” Schumer said

    Cops are the people I’m afraid of, and I’m fucking white.

  39. spamamander, internet amphibian says

    Kids for Cash left me shaking in anger. I’d heard of the cases but not how far-reaching they were for those poor kids.

  41. says

    Man the comments there!

    Dan Grodzian
    Why did he HAVE to assault a student? He is a trained professional and should be able to handle a young girl without throwing her across a room. People that work in developmentally disabled group homes deal with grown men who are violent, and do not hurt them. But somehow, this officer could not control a young girl. So sad when people defend abusers.
    Like · Reply · 22 · 18 hrs
    Eric Nix
    Dan Grodzian, once She tried to strrike the officer, He had every right to take her down.
    Like · Reply · 35 · 17 hrs
    Candi Gerritson · Ames, Iowa
    Dan sees through rose colored glasses and all is rainbows and puppies in his world