Think your kids are being treated equally at school? You may want to think again. An Ohio court has upheld a suspension for a 12-year-old black boy for being in a staring contest with a white girl. According to the boy, she was giggling the whole time. According to court documents, the girl “felt fearful.” Even after writing an apology, the boy was still suspended:
“The perception is he intimidated her,” said his mother, Candice Tolbert. “My son stared at a girl who was engaged in a staring game. She giggled the entire time.” According to Tolbert, the same girl was involved in an incident at the school that was much worse, yet led to no repercussions. “The same girl that accused my son of this act of perception of intimidation, aggressively poured milk on someone else’s lunch. When she did that there was no penalties for that. She received nothing for that,” she explained.
He said, she said takes on a whole other level when race is involved.
Team Blackness also discussed the “motivation” of the Oregon community college shooter, McGraw Hill revising a textbook after a parent complains of misrepresentation of the slave trade, and Congress quietly ending the government’s ban on medical marijuana.
Subscribe on iTunes | Subscribe On Stitcher | Direct Download | RSS
MomSense
Suspension for a staring contest??? WTF?
ruemara
Staring while black! I was once chastised at a job for seeming annoyed visibly while talking to a subordinate who cussed at me. I must have caused the cussing with my visible bad attitude. Guess the race of sub.
Frankensteinbeck
No one in authority is going to believe a black boy over a white girl.
And that is the disgusting, even terrifying problem.
rikyrah
Yes, I saw it.
Existing While Black is indeed a crime.
Staring While Black – something else Black people can’t do.
Phylllis
I’ve stopped looking at & comparing the # of discipline referrals for ‘disrespect’ our middle and high school white & black male students receive from teachers. Our district is 60% African American & 40% White. The disrespect referrals run about 85% AA. Sigh.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
As I said when this came up the other day, I suspect the parents of the girl didn’t like her flirting with a black boy and pressured her into complaining.
Even as a non-parent, the red flag for me is that the boy’s parents weren’t called or informed about any discipline until he came home with the suspension letter a few days later. If the situation is really that serious, shouldn’t his parents have been informed immediately?
Paul in KY
@ruemara: I must say, ‘Staring while Black’ is a new one. I do not understand how this got to where it got?!
Paul in KY
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Why didn’t the principal just say ‘Miranda, don’t engage in any more staring contest with Bert, then’ and let it go?
Wonder if girl’s parents are bigshots/loud assholes?
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Paul in KY:
Sounds like the process was:
Girl’s parents freak out and call administration.
Administration makes the boy do a written apology.
Girl’s parents continue to freak out.
Administration suspends boy.
Boy’s parents are informed after all of the decisions have already been made.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Paul in KY:
Yes. SATSQ
A guy
The discrimination is not cause he’s black it’s because he is male
ruemara
@Paul in KY: you know, it has always been this way. The look on my boss’ face as she dressed me down for what an underling did, was priceless. She could not handle what her gut told her, that this nice lady to her, had a huge problem with a young black person being in charge of her and lashed out. You cannot change what you won’t acknowledge.
Paul in KY
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Well, I hope the girl apologizes to the boy at sometime, if it was her parents pushing this fiasco. Also, hope this gets off his record.
Paul in KY
@ruemara: Sorry that happened. I guess you gave your theory to your supervisor, right?
Just also sorry how fuckin hard it is here for minority citizens.
hells littlest angel
Is this history repeating itself, first as tragedy (Emmett Till), then as farce?
What a fucked-up country right-wingers have made for us.
crshark
The girl and the school tell a different story. The girl was Asian, not white. Also, a second boy who was white was also suspended for the same incident. According to the girl’s account, it wasn’t a game. the African American young man approached her and just stared at her, without saying anything. She backed away, and the young man continued towards her, still staring, not saying anything. The second boy then engaged in the same behavior. If the girl’s account is true, the behavior she described wasn’t a “game.” It was bullying and intimidation.
Link: http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2015/10/06/st-gabriels-suspension-upheld/73481764/
A guy
So the black kid was the bully? Well she ought to learn to deal with it by punch the kid right in the face as hard as she can
Ohio Mom
This happened in a Catholic school in a very affluent Cincinnati suburb. My advice to these parents is, stop spending your money on attornies and private school tution. Move to a suburb with a highly regarded school district and call it a day.
My school district is only a couple of miles away, and after fourteen years of involvement in my local schools, it is impossible for me to inagine an incident like this one being handled in such an unproductive, bigoted and totally assinine way. And I’ve seen my school deal with real bullying.
These parents might have thought they were giving their kid a good example by taking this case to court but did they even consider what the local judges are like? Most of them are extremely conservative. I wouldn’t have taken that chance if you paid me.
Better to walk out of the school and say, Wow, did we misjudge THAT place. They don’t deserve our son or our money, good riddance to bad rubbish.
If on the other hand, they have some sort of loyalty to the Catholic Church, even after all this…
I don’t mean to minimize the very real prejudice African-American children, especially boys face, and I don’t mean to victim blame here either. But they have a much better option in voting with their feet and wallet. Show their kid that advocating for yourself can mean putting yourself in the best environment possible.
Paul in KY
@Ohio Mom: There are some very nice public schools in Cincinnati.