They do shit like this... No home training.
"If I did offend anybody, then I apologize," said Andrew Carel, 18.Guess what happened next? One of the black students got so upset, that when approached by a security guard, the student "assaulted" the guard, and was arrested. REALLY? Can we not interview the guard? What did the student do? Unfortunately, having actually been in that position, just so much as touching the guard (which is what I did), is considered assault. I myself narrowly escaped being charged by the police because I was a good kid (and God was looking out for me).
An apology may not be enough to let Carel and his friend Kyle off the hook after the prank they pulled Friday morning at Auburn-Riverside High School.
"We bought the bananas," Carel said, "got about 3 feet of fishing line, and the tied them up on the balcony."
And why string up bananas in that particular location? Carel said students it's because of the nickname that stairwell has received for the black students who gather there.
"They all hang out under the stairs," he said, "and we just call it "The Jungle" because... that's what even the black people call it too." (source)
Long story short, an interview with a cop (real nice guy) and my teeth being messed up pre-braces (he said I bit him, but my teeth didn't match the bite marks!), I was able to get off with an anger-management class. So I feel for the student. I get it. They were upset, and you know mob mentality, they get real hyper. With that said, just like I was an idiot for falling for that and should've known better, this student should've known better. Besides, do you really want to give the little Klan members in training that kind of satisfaction?
Personally, I would've let the kid off and not pressed charges after a scary ride in the cop car. Let's hope they understand that. But black folks, we have to do better. Getting pissy mad over these things is jumping the gun. Seriously. Organize a protest. Exercise your right and civic duty to speak out against this shit. Don't lower yourself to a level where, not only does the prank/insult have its desired effect, you also act a fool and totally negate your righteous indignation.
And might I inquire, why black children would see it fitting to call their area "The Jungle?" What? Was "The Kingdom" taken? How about "The Spot?" Were those taken by the AV and Glee Club?
As for the white students... Where do I begin? Well, we can go over the usual suspects when it comes to why white teens would act this way, but after reading the research in the book NurtureShock, the fact that parents--white parents particularly--choose to shun discussions about race and racism in this country, coupled with childrens' natural ability to see their "color" as good and others as bad, it should come as no surprise that the fuckery above occurred.
According to the book, this is par for the course. Statistically, only 8% of white students will have a diverse group of close friends by the time they graduate. This story is science in action. It's not the openly racist ones, with Neo-Nazi parents you need to worry about. It's the kids whose parents are "colorblind" or indifferent, that are causing all the damned trouble.
I had a discussion about this with some people on a message board, and while most parents were interested in discussing diversity, several white parents said to just lead by example, which is faulty because if you don't lead in the first place or lead incorrectly, the kids are screwed. Still others shirked the science I quoted, and just said their kids will get it. This is a big fail because if the parent doesn't care, where will the child learn? Oh, that's right. From their friends at school?
Just like I take issue with openly racist parents teaching their kids hate and then having them go to school with my kids, I take issue with parents who choose to remain ignorant, and pass on that ignorance to their kids.
Oftentimes, it's fear of "guilt" but damn that. We all have to face the past at some point. The whole point of going over the past is so we aren't destined to repeat those mistakes. As we regress to a point where incidents like these put us at 1960s levels of tolerance, we should be worried because they are canaries in the mineshaft.
Minority youth don't have heart anymore. They are full of rap-inspired bravado and angry at a machine that may or may not fail them, but they'll never know because they're failing themselves. When you couple this with the fact that they are constantly enabled and coddled by people who believe in the perpetual victimization of minorities, several of which I've had the displeasure of talking to, and these moronic white children who act a fool because their parents have their heads stuck up their asses when it comes to talking about race, we've got a problem.
This is what happens when a country's people are afraid to discuss race, and face it head on.
