Only in contemporary racist America could politicians contort logic so thoroughly as to blame black boys for the crimes committed by white boys.
Not long after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, President Donald Trump and GOP Sen. Marco Rubio suggested that Obama administration guidelines on school discipline were responsible for school violence.
During the latter part of his presidency, Barack Obama issued federal guidelines challenging public school practices, particularly in poor, urban schools. Children of color are subjected to discipline, particularly expulsion and suspension, at far higher rates than their white classmates. The phenomenon quickly became known as the “school-to-prison pipeline.” As with the widely inequitable sentences for drug offenses in previous decades, the data was abundantly clear. Dark skin color dramatically increases the severity of consequences for any negative school behavior.
Soon after the Parkland murders, Trump appointed Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to head a commission re-examining these guidelines. Talk about Fox News guarding the henhouse! The illogic was breathtaking. The Obama guidelines address racial disparity in discipline and, of course, almost all school shooters have been angry young white boys, not students of color.
Part of the motivation for such foolishness is the Trump desire to discredit and reverse anything associated with Obama. His resentment over a black president embarrassing him at a White House Correspondents Dinner knows no bounds. If only Obama had suggested building a wall on the border with Mexico! Trump would be holding fiestas on the border inviting immigrants to enter and giving them bounteous baskets from Welcome Wagon.
The deeper implication of tough discipline and reversal of Obama-era guidelines is the wrongheaded notion that punishment solves problems. Many Americans, sadly some liberals as well as conservatives, believe that permissiveness and lax discipline in schools and homes are a root cause of school violence. The clamor to reinstitute corporal punishment and strict behavioral expectations is growing ever louder. Of course such cries are heard primarily in regard to poor children. It is never the parents of private school kids or public schools in wealthy enclaves who call for fierce treatment of children. Tough responses are necessary only for the “other” children.
It is stunning to observe what is happening in many schools today. Students in so-called “no excuses” charter schools wear uniforms, walk silently in single-file lines from class to class, and are disciplined for even the smallest infraction. It is a school-based version of the “broken windows” policing philosophy, which claims that the best way to control crime is to aggressively criminalize every small act.
Arrest the window breaker, the theory goes, and murders will go down. The “window breakers” in the criminal context are mostly low-level drug users or dealers. Put them in jail and they won’t murder anyone. They also won’t have a job, won’t be around to care for their children, won’t be subsequently employable, won’t learn a damned thing, and will be more likely to commit more egregious violations because of what happens to them in prison and the justified anger they carry.
In schools, the policies work too, because the “no excuses” approach drives kids out of schools and they are no longer a problem. Except they also don’t get an education, don’t trust schools or adults, are unemployable and also carry justified anger for the dismal way they have been treated.
A few years ago, a very wealthy advocate of “no excuses” charter schools was asked about these kinds of disciplinary practices. After all, he and most of us might threaten to sue any school that shunned, shamed and humiliated our children in this way. His own daughters attended a very expensive private girls school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
His response was, “Because they need it.” It is not coincidental that the students in these schools are almost all poor and of color. The not-so-subtle, deeply offensive assumption is that poor black boys need to be civilized.
It is deeply ironic that the discriminatory and abusive “no excuses” disciplinary practices are far more likely to cause the isolation, rejection and humiliation that will lead to more violence. That’s true regardless of race or class. In this sense, ignorance is colorblind.
I invite any interested reader to email me at the address below to receive a copy of one New York City charter school’s disturbing disciplinary policy.
All children will respond to love and trust, if we love and trust them enough to give it to them.
Steve Nelson lives in Boulder, Colo., and Sharon. He can be reached at stevehutnelson@ gmail.com.