Read the fine print
I mean technically, we ourselves assign “new beginnings” to new weeks…like Mondays or Sundays…saying the end of the week is the “weekend” things of that sort. I feel like to some degree it sets you up for extra anxiety because you feel like Mondays are fresh starts. If the start isn’t good, the rest of the week is mostly just managing anxiety day to day.
This morning my phone went off a lot between work emails and people asking for things, which is normal, but for some reason it was more annoying today. That combined with co-workers having issues with people divulging information that in NO WAY would have a positive impact on ANYTHING…
And also seeing crappily written click bait articles about that WHO study about meat. Lots of different flavors of that one…I saw :
“Bacon causes cancer”
“Human DNA found in hot dogs”
“10 percent of vegetarian food has meat”
And of course people will repost….not thinking about the other side of those issues.
“Pretty much all processed food contributes to cancer”
“Human DNA was found in 2% of sample sizes. IT WAS NOT FOUND IN 98%. You don’t want to know what was in that pizza you just ate from a place where they actually touch the food you’re eating unlike most manufacturing places where your stuff is made with machines…”
“90% OF VEGETARIAN FOOD DOES NOT HAVE MEAT!”
But as usual, people hone in on the outliers…and it becomes headlines.
I should not be surprised. I know these theories. I use them daily in my job (which is why I do not like doing public facing U.X) but still…it’s kind of mindboggling how easily people can be led.
So…
Well…
There’s a video of a girl being basically slammed on the floor and drug out of chair for not doing what the policeman said.
Outrage in the culture of police brutality of course.
Questions though….
There’s a lot of violent speech in the vernacular, one relevant one being “dragged” “drag her…” “dragged for the gods” etc.
Also popular sentiment, especially in Black culture is to use force, amongst ourselves, for kids, and especially girls, who are “too grown”. Usually it’s like a slap or something and not a grown man throwing a girl to the ground like a rag doll, but it’s a thing.
Still though, all of that was un. necessary. Like it doesn’t take all that to move a high school girl around, especially if she’s not physically resisting….
But it’s still more complicated than that, the whole situation is…
Like I’m thinking of my little sister mentee. She’s a good kid, but I’m imagining what it would be like if she dealt with her home situation in a different way.
- She’s oldest of 4 kids, where the next oldest kid is 7 years younger
- Father is in jail
- Mother works a lot and relies on her to take care of the others
- No one is really guiding her. She doesn’t know of alternative ways of living
- She doesn’t know anybody who’s ever been to college
- She doesn’t know anybody who lives in a house
- She maybe gets a good meal every few days
- She sees the police harass her neighbors and the people she loves, regularly
- Everyone around her talks negatively about the police
- She exhausted, always surrounded by people, doesn’t really have an escape
- Her only outlet for her frustration is when people try her at school
- She has a phone. She’s hangry (hadn’t eaten that day and irritable)
- Teacher is trying her and she doesn’t want to hear it.
- Police officer is called in…she’s doesn’t want to hear it.
- He tells her to get up…she doesn’t want to hear it.
- He slams her to the ground. Drags her out….
- National TV…
Could she just have been an a-hole kid? Of course! There are TONS of those who grow up to be a-hole adults (see police officer)! BUT the vast majority don’t start out that way, they were groomed products of their environments.
And that goes for EVERYONE from Lil Lexus and Lil Dre from around the way to Lil Apple and Lil Harrington who are allergic to gluten and don’t believe in shoes.
But the way to fix it is not like this. When you try to “punish” an action without considering context and getting to the real source of why it happens in the first place, it has ZERO impact and is more likely to just make everything worse (see how this continues to happen, every day, somewhere in America).
Everyone is so quick to dismiss kids with behavior problems, say “poor thing” and leave them in their situations, or say “it’s just kids being kids”. They never take the time to figure out WHY they act that way or how to help them overcome their environments. They just slap a punishment on them, throw them out, ignore them, dismiss the behavior…and they in turn grow up to be super insecure socio/psychopaths (like the officer) or participants in contributing to poor environments (abuse victims, legit criminals, etc.)
That said…
Prooobably a lost cause for the cop…so…
The most important thing I want to see come out of this is support for that girl.
Tutoring for that girl.
Exposure to other options for that girl.
Raise money and send her to space camp.
Send her to a Black Grils Code workshop.
Lift her up so she can know there is a WORLD of opportunities out there for her and that she’s more than this experience.
But we all know what will happen…she’ll be called a “thug” or a “punk” by non-empathetic people…and it’ll be just another example of “police brutality” by the other side.
Everyone will forget about her in like two days…because nobody actually cares about her, they just care about their own agendas.
Don’t just react and dispose.
Read the fine print.
