http://www.atlredline.com/heres-why-we-beat-black-kids-1739021801
Do you remember the “hero mom” from the Freddie Gray protests in Baltimore? She saw her kid protesting, went down to the scene, and smacked the hell out of her child.
<iframe width="800" height="437" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PPWjphLulvs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
She was lauded for this. Knocking some sense into him showed that she cared.
Fast forward to the South Carolina, Spring Valley High School video. A student was allegedly being belligerent and refused to leave a math class. The teacher called the SRO... which is the school police officer. Officer Ben Fields proceeded to... knock some sense into her.
Do you see the pattern here? We act like black kids only understand one thing: a beating. We act like there is only one form of true discipline for black kids: a whuppin’. We act like a belt or a nightstick or a choke hold or a GUN are our only tools for controlling black youths. Did you see what this cop did to this girl in the video? He flipped her over in her chair, then dragged her around by her hair and kept beating her... because she was acting up in class. Look at what the punishment was for not following the rules.
<iframe width="800" height="437" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xLeIYl5vm90" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Would this ever happen to a white girl? Imagine the most obstinate, belligerent white girl you can. Imagine her refusing to leave a class. Does she EVER get flipped and beaten like that in school? Coriolanus Snow wouldn’t discipline Katniss Everdeen like this.
Lots of children have problems with authority. But only black children are supposed to have that problem beaten out of them. Society tells black parents that it’s their job to beat the crap out of their kids, leaders wax poetic about the old days when anybody in the neighborhood had the moral authority to beat the crap out of black kids in the community. And the thinly veiled threat is that if parents don’t sufficiently beat the crap out of their kids, the cops will step in and course correct for “absentee” parenting.
If the Spring Valley video sickens you, it’s because that’s what slavery looked like. That video just doesn’t show police brutality or the militarization of schools or decaying classroom etiquette. It shows a glimpse of how it was when black children were treated like wild chattel that needed to be tamed or broken before they could be productive farm equipment able to fetch a good price on the open market.
The beating of black children is our cultural hangover from those times. What’s heartbreaking is that it is our shared cultural heritage: black people can be just as guilty of it as anybody else. Nobody has any patience with black children. Not the schools, and certainly not the cops. If beating doesn’t work, we are happy to lock them up so that they can’t bother the rest of us. I don’t know how many “F U”s a black girl is supposed to get before somebody feels like it’s time to flip her upside down and beat her, but I know Dakota Fanning’s number is “unlimited.”
We assume white kids will grow into their roles in society. We assume black kids will rebel against their racially unequal destiny... unless we beat on them early and often. We don’t beat black children to knock some sense into them, we beat black children to knock the hope out of them.
And there is hell to pay if they don’t accept their lesson.
Do you remember the “hero mom” from the Freddie Gray protests in Baltimore? She saw her kid protesting, went down to the scene, and smacked the hell out of her child.
<iframe width="800" height="437" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PPWjphLulvs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
She was lauded for this. Knocking some sense into him showed that she cared.
Fast forward to the South Carolina, Spring Valley High School video. A student was allegedly being belligerent and refused to leave a math class. The teacher called the SRO... which is the school police officer. Officer Ben Fields proceeded to... knock some sense into her.
Do you see the pattern here? We act like black kids only understand one thing: a beating. We act like there is only one form of true discipline for black kids: a whuppin’. We act like a belt or a nightstick or a choke hold or a GUN are our only tools for controlling black youths. Did you see what this cop did to this girl in the video? He flipped her over in her chair, then dragged her around by her hair and kept beating her... because she was acting up in class. Look at what the punishment was for not following the rules.
<iframe width="800" height="437" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xLeIYl5vm90" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Would this ever happen to a white girl? Imagine the most obstinate, belligerent white girl you can. Imagine her refusing to leave a class. Does she EVER get flipped and beaten like that in school? Coriolanus Snow wouldn’t discipline Katniss Everdeen like this.
Lots of children have problems with authority. But only black children are supposed to have that problem beaten out of them. Society tells black parents that it’s their job to beat the crap out of their kids, leaders wax poetic about the old days when anybody in the neighborhood had the moral authority to beat the crap out of black kids in the community. And the thinly veiled threat is that if parents don’t sufficiently beat the crap out of their kids, the cops will step in and course correct for “absentee” parenting.
If the Spring Valley video sickens you, it’s because that’s what slavery looked like. That video just doesn’t show police brutality or the militarization of schools or decaying classroom etiquette. It shows a glimpse of how it was when black children were treated like wild chattel that needed to be tamed or broken before they could be productive farm equipment able to fetch a good price on the open market.
The beating of black children is our cultural hangover from those times. What’s heartbreaking is that it is our shared cultural heritage: black people can be just as guilty of it as anybody else. Nobody has any patience with black children. Not the schools, and certainly not the cops. If beating doesn’t work, we are happy to lock them up so that they can’t bother the rest of us. I don’t know how many “F U”s a black girl is supposed to get before somebody feels like it’s time to flip her upside down and beat her, but I know Dakota Fanning’s number is “unlimited.”
We assume white kids will grow into their roles in society. We assume black kids will rebel against their racially unequal destiny... unless we beat on them early and often. We don’t beat black children to knock some sense into them, we beat black children to knock the hope out of them.
And there is hell to pay if they don’t accept their lesson.
