Christine Powlus @cmpowlus - Twitter Profile

I was a public school teacher in the hood for 11 years, and I know this type of kid. The type that would smack the kid sitting in front of him, tell the teacher “IDGAF” when corrected, and ruin an entire year’s worth of learning for the entire class. His special education teachers would describe him as “actually very smart with a lot of potential,” despite him failing every class and scoring a 9 on the ACT. There would be countless meetings with him and his mom and the social workers, psychologists , and principal would speak in soft voices and nod and smile when the kid told them he wants to be a “doctor.” They’d design all sorts of ridiculous accommodations that give him ample room to behave however he wanted and terrorize his teachers and peers with minimal consequences. Teachers would spend the entire class trying to reign in his behavior, and when they called security to remove him, they’d have to evacuate the entire class first. He’d rarely receive any consequences. The principal would reprimand the teachers for “not building a relationship with him” and accuse them of “singling him out because he was black.” As a result, they’d give up and his behavior would escalate. If he was really bad, he’d get a time out in a special room where he’d sit on his phone and tell the supervisor to “shut the fuck up” if they said anything. Maybe he’d have to partake in a “peace circle” if he became violent. He’d eventually get “socially promoted” to his senior year and there would be a massive effort to get his credits recovered, mostly by pressuring teachers to give him alternative assignments and 50% for the work he didn’t do. He’d walk down the graduation stage and everyone would cheer, and he’d probably do something embarrassing like give the finger to the audience. As a young adult, he’d walk the city behaving exactly as he did in school because he’d been socialized to learn there are zero consequences for his behavior. Depending on the city, he’d probably get similar treatment from the cops and public afraid of creating a public scene that would lead to riots in their city. One day, he’d snap, and do something like this. And only then, would everyone act surprised, as if this wasn’t largely in part due to how our public schools negatively socialize and enable the behavior of animals that should be locked up or institutionalized as teenagers.