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Watching this unfold outside of America was really a masterclass in how racism and discrimination continues to thrive in America. Which isn't to say It's uniqu

by cup 11y ago

Watching this unfold outside of America was really a masterclass in how racism and discrimination continues to thrive in America. Which isn't to say It's unique to America, only from my experience a lot of Americans think their country has moved on from those days when in actual fact, racism is alive and kicking. The fact that you had news reporters and even Dawkins going after him was embarrassing and sad. When I was 14 I hung out with (Caucasian) kids that lit things on fire in the park.

donatj 11y ago
I feel like it had more to do with how controlling and oppressive our school system has become than race.
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
  It had very little to do with the school system. If the kid was white it wouldn't have happened.
  - donatj 11y ago
    White children are arrested for stupid things all the time too. I went to highschool with a kid who got arrested for installing VNC server on a school computer.
    - TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
      Oh for sure. But non-white kids are automatically viewed with greater suspicion/less likely to be believed.
      - mindslight 11y ago
        But the fundamental problem is that it shouldn't matter - you can't legislate away bigotry. In fact, attempting to do so just creates resentment which is passed to the next generation. You can legislate a sane school/legal environment that removes the arbitrary and capricious power from possible bigots, overreactors, and other adult bullies.
        lispit 11y ago
        That's what really pissed me off about this charade. It would have been the perfect opportunity to talk about how fucked up our school administrations and their "zero tolerance" policies are, and instead everyone wasted their time rehashing the same old arguments about race that we have every day, that everyone has already made up their minds about.
        dragonwriter 11y ago
        > It would have been the perfect opportunity to talk about how fucked up our school administrations and their "zero tolerance" policies are, and instead everyone wasted their time rehashing the same old arguments about race that we have every day Actually, most of the early response from public critics -- and most of the major-actor outreach to counter the official sanction directed at the student -- seemed to focus largely on the lack of sensibility of the administration and it being a failure of authoritarianism stifling harmless youthful experimentation. There was some speculation about the official reaction potentially having racist motivation, but the issue becoming principally about racial and/or religious bigotry really kind of took off as defenders of the actions by the school (or those just wanting to bash Obama because politics) started arguing that the student must have been guilty of doing something wrong, even if it wasn't actually building a bomb, because of his families background.
  - JackFr 11y ago
    That's easy to say, but impossible to know. If the kid matches the right profile with the wrong teacher, there are plenty of scenarios where a white kid gets arrested for this.
  - tedks 11y ago
    Zero tolerance policies effect everyone. I'm sure if the kid was white he would be treated exactly the same. Now, it depends what kind of white kid, certainly. The captain of the football team? Probably a slap on the wrist. Anyone who wears black more than a day a month? Definitely getting arrested. According to the district documents, the policies for a "look-alike weapon" are the same as those for a weapon -- see: http://www.irvingisd.net/cms/lib010/TX01917973/Centricity/Domain/1454/Irving%20ISD%20Student%20Code%20of%20Conduct%202015-2106%20English.pdf http://www.irvingisd.net/cms/lib010/TX01917973/Centricity/Do... http://pol.tasb.org/Policy/Download/367?filename=FOD(LEGAL).pdf http://pol.tasb.org/Policy/Download/367?filename=FOD(LEGAL).... Zero-tolerance policies do disproportionally damage students of color (like many policies in most countries...) but they're perfectly capable of damaging white students as well, and it's almost certainly false to say that if a nerdy, technophillic white kid brought a strange device to a Texas school, he wouldn't be arrested for possessing a "look-alike" bomb.
  - mangeletti 11y ago
    I was expelled from 7th grade (1996) for just holding a toy gun[1] (a friend brought it to school, but let me play with it, which lasted for about 5 minutes). The superintendent said they had a zero tolerance policy for guns and lookalikes after Columbine. My mother made an embarrassingly huge fuss about how overboard they were going, and ended up getting the expulsion overturned at a sort of appeal "hearing", which resulted in me missing just 3 days of school. It was a really stressful situation. I'm Caucasian. 1. Something like this: http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/orange-plastic-water-pistol-isolated-white-background-30308332.jpg http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/orange-plastic-water-pistol-i...
    - mangeletti 11y ago
      Note: I brought this up to my mom and she pointed out that it was a shooting in Washington, not Columbine, that had the schools paranoid.
  - rhino369 11y ago
    America has been deeply suspicious of nerdy white boys since Columbine. That's not to say Muslim kids don't get discriminated against. My brother in law had a hard time in post 9/11 Virgina because he's Afghan.
TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
America is so obsessed with race that it boggles the mind any American would think racism is a non-issue.
- venomsnake 11y ago
  On the global scale of the shitstorms that unfold - I have a feeling the whole world is burning, racism in the US is a foot note. What you have right now is the buzzfidization of the internet discourse - identity politics is easy traffic and money, so everyone is doing it.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
Karunamon 11y ago
"Going after him?" AFAIK, all Dawkins said was that he didn't build a clock. Which he didn't, he took a circa 1980s Radio Shack clock out of its case and mounted it in a pencil box. Apparently trivially verifiable facts are discriminatory now? This whole thing stinks. I've seen nothing in either the police reports, the words of the involved people, or any hard, objective facts that indicate that this is a matter of anything other than garden variety school administrative stupidity.
- cup 11y ago
  Well the question is why an internationally recognized biologist with millions of followers though the need to wade into the controversy. Also you're forgetting the tweets where he called the kid a fraud, and insinuated he might have wanted to be arrested for the attention.
- mozumder 11y ago
  I don't get why Dawkins is so against case-modding? It's a valid design/art form.
  - tedunangst 11y ago
    How does one go from Dawkins said he didn't build a clock to "Dawkins is so against case-modding"?
    - mozumder 11y ago
      Because that's what he's criticizing - the fact that he didn't build the electronics, but only made a different case.
- GuiA 11y ago
  Dawkins was being an ass for the sake of having the last word. Sure, nothing he did was impressive to the internet geniuses who have 10 years of experience and a college degree more than him. And so what? The kid was curious, that kind of initiative shouldn't be stifled. Because anyone who has worked with kids/teenagers in any capacity knows quite well how easy it is to kill that kind of thing in the bud. It takes a seed to grow a tree. I would absolutely say that Dawkins was in fact "going after him" and being an asshole, even if he probably didn't fully understand why (but that makes the whole situation even sadder, that a scientist so visible to the public would be clueless about how to engage kids about science and engineering).
caminante 11y ago
>Watching this unfold outside of America was really a masterclass in how racism and discrimination continues to thrive in America. Kids get suspended for less in schools, now -- racism or not. It's easier (and more likely) to explain these outcomes through hardened, zero-tolerance policies. >When I was 14 I hung out with (Caucasian) kids that lit things on fire in the park. And...I'm assuming you didn't get caught because you used discretion and weren't doing things in a controlled setting (e.g. classroom) or putting others at risk.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > It's easier (and more likely) to explain these outcomes through hardened, zero-tolerance policies. IME, zero-tolerance policies are highly-selectively enforced; they are quite convenient for administrators who want to act arbitrarily, because lack of action is less likely to be challenged if it doesn't lead to someone else getting injured, but any time action is taken (however flimsy the justification) the nest of zero-tolerance policies for (for drugs, including anything that could loosely be interpreted as associated with drug paraphernalia or drug culture; for weapons and violence, including anything that could loosely be interpreted as being suggestive of, related to, a simulation of, etc., a weapon or violent act; etc.) provide a convenient excuse for any response disproportionate to the substance of the act. Zero-tolerance policies aren't an alternative explanation to administrators acting arbitrarily including based on racial, religious, or other prejudiced animus, they are an enabling mechanism for that arbitrary action.
  - Karunamon 11y ago
    Which leaves us back where we started: Given that white kids are subjected to police involvement for unambiguous toy weapons all the time, what evidence is there that this has anything to do with prejudice?
Karunamon 11y ago
I hate to tell you this but that last bit doesn't have jack to do with race. I did things with fire and explosives when I was that age that would be grounds for prison time in the current oversensitive climate.

by cup 11y ago

donatj 11y ago

I feel like it had more to do with how controlling and oppressive our school system has become than race.

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
It had very little to do with the school system. If the kid was white it wouldn't have happened.
- donatj 11y ago
  White children are arrested for stupid things all the time too. I went to highschool with a kid who got arrested for installing VNC server on a school computer.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
    Oh for sure. But non-white kids are automatically viewed with greater suspicion/less likely to be believed.
    - mindslight 11y ago
      But the fundamental problem is that it shouldn't matter - you can't legislate away bigotry. In fact, attempting to do so just creates resentment which is passed to the next generation. You can legislate a sane school/legal environment that removes the arbitrary and capricious power from possible bigots, overreactors, and other adult bullies.
      - lispit 11y ago
        That's what really pissed me off about this charade. It would have been the perfect opportunity to talk about how fucked up our school administrations and their "zero tolerance" policies are, and instead everyone wasted their time rehashing the same old arguments about race that we have every day, that everyone has already made up their minds about.
        dragonwriter 11y ago
        > It would have been the perfect opportunity to talk about how fucked up our school administrations and their "zero tolerance" policies are, and instead everyone wasted their time rehashing the same old arguments about race that we have every day Actually, most of the early response from public critics -- and most of the major-actor outreach to counter the official sanction directed at the student -- seemed to focus largely on the lack of sensibility of the administration and it being a failure of authoritarianism stifling harmless youthful experimentation. There was some speculation about the official reaction potentially having racist motivation, but the issue becoming principally about racial and/or religious bigotry really kind of took off as defenders of the actions by the school (or those just wanting to bash Obama because politics) started arguing that the student must have been guilty of doing something wrong, even if it wasn't actually building a bomb, because of his families background.
- JackFr 11y ago
  That's easy to say, but impossible to know. If the kid matches the right profile with the wrong teacher, there are plenty of scenarios where a white kid gets arrested for this.
- tedks 11y ago
  Zero tolerance policies effect everyone. I'm sure if the kid was white he would be treated exactly the same. Now, it depends what kind of white kid, certainly. The captain of the football team? Probably a slap on the wrist. Anyone who wears black more than a day a month? Definitely getting arrested. According to the district documents, the policies for a "look-alike weapon" are the same as those for a weapon -- see: http://www.irvingisd.net/cms/lib010/TX01917973/Centricity/Domain/1454/Irving%20ISD%20Student%20Code%20of%20Conduct%202015-2106%20English.pdf http://www.irvingisd.net/cms/lib010/TX01917973/Centricity/Do... http://pol.tasb.org/Policy/Download/367?filename=FOD(LEGAL).pdf http://pol.tasb.org/Policy/Download/367?filename=FOD(LEGAL).... Zero-tolerance policies do disproportionally damage students of color (like many policies in most countries...) but they're perfectly capable of damaging white students as well, and it's almost certainly false to say that if a nerdy, technophillic white kid brought a strange device to a Texas school, he wouldn't be arrested for possessing a "look-alike" bomb.
- mangeletti 11y ago
  I was expelled from 7th grade (1996) for just holding a toy gun[1] (a friend brought it to school, but let me play with it, which lasted for about 5 minutes). The superintendent said they had a zero tolerance policy for guns and lookalikes after Columbine. My mother made an embarrassingly huge fuss about how overboard they were going, and ended up getting the expulsion overturned at a sort of appeal "hearing", which resulted in me missing just 3 days of school. It was a really stressful situation. I'm Caucasian. 1. Something like this: http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/orange-plastic-water-pistol-isolated-white-background-30308332.jpg http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/orange-plastic-water-pistol-i...
  - mangeletti 11y ago
    Note: I brought this up to my mom and she pointed out that it was a shooting in Washington, not Columbine, that had the schools paranoid.
- rhino369 11y ago
  America has been deeply suspicious of nerdy white boys since Columbine. That's not to say Muslim kids don't get discriminated against. My brother in law had a hard time in post 9/11 Virgina because he's Afghan.

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago

America is so obsessed with race that it boggles the mind any American would think racism is a non-issue.

venomsnake 11y ago
On the global scale of the shitstorms that unfold - I have a feeling the whole world is burning, racism in the US is a foot note. What you have right now is the buzzfidization of the internet discourse - identity politics is easy traffic and money, so everyone is doing it.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

Karunamon 11y ago

"Going after him?" AFAIK, all Dawkins said was that he didn't build a clock. Which he didn't, he took a circa 1980s Radio Shack clock out of its case and mounted it in a pencil box. Apparently trivially verifiable facts are discriminatory now? This whole thing stinks. I've seen nothing in either the police reports, the words of the involved people, or any hard, objective facts that indicate that this is a matter of anything other than garden variety school administrative stupidity.

cup 11y ago
Well the question is why an internationally recognized biologist with millions of followers though the need to wade into the controversy. Also you're forgetting the tweets where he called the kid a fraud, and insinuated he might have wanted to be arrested for the attention.
mozumder 11y ago
I don't get why Dawkins is so against case-modding? It's a valid design/art form.
- tedunangst 11y ago
  How does one go from Dawkins said he didn't build a clock to "Dawkins is so against case-modding"?
  - mozumder 11y ago
    Because that's what he's criticizing - the fact that he didn't build the electronics, but only made a different case.
GuiA 11y ago
Dawkins was being an ass for the sake of having the last word. Sure, nothing he did was impressive to the internet geniuses who have 10 years of experience and a college degree more than him. And so what? The kid was curious, that kind of initiative shouldn't be stifled. Because anyone who has worked with kids/teenagers in any capacity knows quite well how easy it is to kill that kind of thing in the bud. It takes a seed to grow a tree. I would absolutely say that Dawkins was in fact "going after him" and being an asshole, even if he probably didn't fully understand why (but that makes the whole situation even sadder, that a scientist so visible to the public would be clueless about how to engage kids about science and engineering).

caminante 11y ago

>Watching this unfold outside of America was really a masterclass in how racism and discrimination continues to thrive in America. Kids get suspended for less in schools, now -- racism or not. It's easier (and more likely) to explain these outcomes through hardened, zero-tolerance policies. >When I was 14 I hung out with (Caucasian) kids that lit things on fire in the park. And...I'm assuming you didn't get caught because you used discretion and weren't doing things in a controlled setting (e.g. classroom) or putting others at risk.

dragonwriter 11y ago
> It's easier (and more likely) to explain these outcomes through hardened, zero-tolerance policies. IME, zero-tolerance policies are highly-selectively enforced; they are quite convenient for administrators who want to act arbitrarily, because lack of action is less likely to be challenged if it doesn't lead to someone else getting injured, but any time action is taken (however flimsy the justification) the nest of zero-tolerance policies for (for drugs, including anything that could loosely be interpreted as associated with drug paraphernalia or drug culture; for weapons and violence, including anything that could loosely be interpreted as being suggestive of, related to, a simulation of, etc., a weapon or violent act; etc.) provide a convenient excuse for any response disproportionate to the substance of the act. Zero-tolerance policies aren't an alternative explanation to administrators acting arbitrarily including based on racial, religious, or other prejudiced animus, they are an enabling mechanism for that arbitrary action.
- Karunamon 11y ago
  Which leaves us back where we started: Given that white kids are subjected to police involvement for unambiguous toy weapons all the time, what evidence is there that this has anything to do with prejudice?

Karunamon 11y ago

I hate to tell you this but that last bit doesn't have jack to do with race. I did things with fire and explosives when I was that age that would be grounds for prison time in the current oversensitive climate.