You Realize Arming Teachers Is Going To Lead To Black Students Getting Murdered By Their Teacher, Right?
By Elie Mystal - Above the Law
There are many reasons to be against President Wayne LaPierre Donald Trump’s idea to arm teachers in public schools. It’s dangerous. It’s expensive. It changes the core-competency of “teaching.” And, you know, it’s not actually going to deter mass shooters.
But there’s one more problem that I’m sure most white people haven’t thought about yet: arming American teachers will directly result in students of color being shot to death at school.
I know that because the only other group of public employees that is armed at the behest of the state shoots unarmed people of color on the reg. The cops actually receive extensive training on how to use their firearms, how to asses threats, and how to deescalate situations, and yet they still murder innocent civilians all the time.
Giving a teacher a gun is ASKING them to be afraid. It makes poor judgment a homicidal offense. And that danger will be borne by black and brown students. The students who make teachers “afraid” just by their very existence.
We’ll be telling teachers to shoot armed terrorists breaching the school. What’s really going to happen is an unarmed black truant loitering in a hallway he’s not supposed to be in who gets shot eight times by the jumpy choir director.
Oh, she’ll feel just awful about her mistake. But a jury of her peers will never convict her of a crime.
One can assume that the legal system will treat armed teachers just like cops. Civilians are not allowed to discharge their weapons in public places except in the most extreme of circumstances, but cops are allowed to pop a cap in anything that frightens them. We’ve learned that cops are cowards who are easily spooked. The bar for a frightened teacher will be even lower. Having told the community that armed teachers are necessary to protect children, no jury is going to convict a teacher just because he or she mistakenly perceived a threat. And white America will rally around the poor teacher who emptied his clip into a “loud,” “aggressive” student of color who “has a history” of smoking cigarettes behind the school and getting into fights.
I can see the media reports now: “D’LaQuan Freedman was shot dead after threatening local teacher Miss Mary Priss with projectile chicken nuggets. Priss believed Freedman had a gun in his lunchbox, which in fact only contained a Pokemon ball believed stolen from a white child. Though just eight, Freedman’s permanent record revealed that the large, athletic boy received detention three whole times since his parents divorced, late last year.”
America is entirely too racist to arm teachers. Our legal system is INCAPABLE of holding public employees to account for murdering minorities. Black and brown students should not have to die because disgruntled white boys are shooting up their schools.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by RBP
