Why Black Children Aren’t Seen As America’s Treasure

8Comments

1. 1.

   Paul in KY

   January 22, 2015 at 1:59 pm

   @efgoldman: What the Hell do you think?

2. 2.

   Cervantes

   January 22, 2015 at 2:31 pm

   Why Black Children Aren’t Seen As America’s Treasure

   If that’s a question, it answers itself.

   And it’s disgraceful.

3. 3.

   Uncle Ebeneezer

   January 22, 2015 at 3:13 pm

   Just a quick correction: Eugenie Bouchard is actually the WTA player that was asked to twirl. I’m not sure who the interviewer was (can’t really see from the clip) but it sounds like a local Aussie man. Sadly this sort of sexism still slips out in Women’s tennis pretty regularly. Bouchard is one of a handful of amazingly talented, young players (along with Madison Keys, Garbine Muguruza, Camila Giorgi, Caroline Garcia, Dominika Cibulkova etc.) poised to become the next generation of stars. Unfortunately, there is still way too often commentary and focus on their attractiveness or how “lovely” they are, even by the female commentators. It’s especially sad given the history of the sport with strong, unapologetic feminists like Navratilova and Billie Jean King who tried to bring an end to such stuff. I’m sad to see Serena consider life “too short” to object to this kind of sexism. I understand why she doesn’t want to go there (she gets racist/sexist shit thrown at her every time she does anything), but it would have been really cool if she did, seeing as she will likely soon break through the 18 major wall and become inarguably the greatest player the sport has ever seen. The sport has come along way since the 60’s/70’s with women now making much more $ and getting almost as much attention as the men, but some things really haven’t changed.

4. 4.

   Mandalay

   January 22, 2015 at 3:13 pm

   One of the comments in your first link put me on to this story:

   Police in Georgia defended their decision Tuesday to handcuff and arrest a 6-year-old elementary student after the school called to report a juvenile had assaulted a principal and was damaging school property.

   Milledgeville police said they were called to Creekside Elementary School on Friday for an unruly juvenile, who was allegedly throwing a tantrum.

   According to their report, when the officer arrived, he observed kindergartner Salecia Johnson on the floor of the principal’s office screaming and crying.

   The officer stated in the report that he noticed damage to school property and tried numerous times to calm the girl, who eventually “pulled away and began actively resisting and fighting with me.”

   “The child was then placed in handcuffs for her safety and the officer proceeded to bring her down to the police station,” said Chief Dray Swicord…

   The 6-year-old was initially charged as a juvenile with simple battery of a schoolteacher and criminal damage to property, but the police chief said at a news conference Tuesday the girl would not be charged because of her age.

   And of course the cops wheeled out their favorite tired canard: they cuffed a six year old girl for her safety.

5. 5.

   Paul in KY

   January 22, 2015 at 3:20 pm

   @Mandalay: Other than a good surprise nut-punch, I am at a loss to see how a 6 year old could assault a grown person.

   Maybe, if said person is 3’8′, I guess…

6. 6.

   Mnemosyne (iPhone)

   January 22, 2015 at 3:39 pm

   @Paul in KY:

   I find it really hard to believe that no kid ever threw a temper tantrum at school when I was growing up. What they heck did they used to do?

7. 7.

   Another Holocene Human

   January 22, 2015 at 3:52 pm

   Powerful topic, Elon. Why indeed.

8. 8.

   mclaren

   January 22, 2015 at 10:34 pm

   You really ought to do a post about the superpredator myth, now that it’s been comprehensively debunked. The bastard who confected this crap should be indicted and sent to prison. The states that enacted these punitive laws against minors should have to pay massive reparations.

   The New York Times reported this week on the “superpredator” myth, which 20 years ago led nearly every state in the country to expand laws that removed children from juvenile courts and exposed them to adult sentences, including life without parole.

   A documentary by Retro Report, The Superpredator Scare, tells the story of how influential criminologists in the 1990s issued predictions of a coming wave of “superpredators”: “radically impulsive, brutally remorseless” “elementary school youngsters who pack guns instead of lunches” and “have absolutely no respect for human life.” Much of this frightening imagery was racially coded.

   In 1995, John DiIulio, a professor at Princeton who coined the term “superpredator,” predicted that the number of juveniles in custody would increase three-fold in the coming years and that, by 2010, there would be “an estimated 270,000 more young predators on the streets than in 1990.” Criminologist James Fox joined in the rhetoric, saying publicly, “Unless we act today, we’re going to have a bloodbath when these kids grow up.”

   These predictions set off a panic, fueled by highly publicized heinous crimes committed by juvenile offenders, which led nearly every state to pass legislation between 1992 and 1999 that dramatically increased the treatment of juveniles as adults for purposes of sentencing and punishment.

   As DiIulio and Fox themselves later admitted, the prediction of a juvenile superpredator epidemic turned out to be wrong. In fact, violent juvenile crime rates had already started to fall in the mid-1990’s. By 2000, the juvenile homicide rate stabilized below the 1985 level.

   Source: “The Superpredator Myth, 20 Years Later,” Equal Justice Initiative website, 7 April 2014.