There is no excuse. Not one. And if you think there is an excuse for Officer Field’s behavior then you really are part of the problem. Know who else is part of the problem? The teacher and the administrator. Not one of the adults involved demonstrated skill in deescalation. All of them demonstrated the art of escalation. Talk about an adult pissing contest. And I’m fine with all of them being fired. No loss there.
Not kidding. If you think kids don’t pull out their phones during class then you don’t know kids. (My daughter was so guilty of this in high school and yet no one laid a hand on her. They. Wouldn’t. Dare. And that is what privilege looks like.) Hell, this isn’t even a kid problem. Mostly everyone is guilty of this behavior. If you’re okay with Officer Field’s behavior, hope you’re okay if you’re flipped out of your chair and thrown across the room at a restaurant that doesn’t allow cell phone use. That’s okay, right?
The truth is this would never have happened to a white, middle class girl. Not. Ever. It’s why white boys accused of crimes are shown in their yearbook pictures while Tamir Rice (a 12 year old) is portrayed, not only as a potential criminal threat, but far older than his years.
And this incident is a flippin’ pattern that those parsing this horrendous video ignore.
University of Virginia student Martese Johnson misstepped earlier this year when he tried to enter a bar while underaged. He was beaten bloody. Twelve-year-old Tamir Rice misstepped last year in Cleveland, Ohio when he was playing with a toy gun in a park. He was executed at close range. John Crawford III misstepped in Beavercreek, Ohio when he picked up an air rifle off a shelf in Wal-Mart. He, too, was executed at close range. Jonathan Ferrell misstepped in Charlotte, N.C. two years ago when he banged on doors for help after a car accident. He was shot 10 times. Less than two months later, Renisha McBride misstepped in Detroit, Mich., when she got in a car accident of her own and also sought assistance. She was shot in the back of the head.
From an early age, blacks learn their lives can be taken casually—almost accidentally—and learn to focus on what they can control. Blacks are taught humility in the home—always with words and often with whips—and in the black Christian church. Black humility is often conflated with the Christian kind, but the two couldn’t be any further apart. Christian humility is affirmative, rooted in equality and the idea that God loves whores and kings all the same. Black humility is borne of pragmatism, of self-preservation in the face of mechanized brutality. To be black and humble is to be outwardly subservient, to tiptoe around the authority of a teacher, or a cop, or a neighborhood watchman, or just a white person ambling past. When blacks choose defiance, no matter how small, over humility, they are proving their black criminality. Bad things happen.
Sandra Bland, and Eric Garner, and Trayvon Martin, and Michael Brown, and Jordan Davis, and Freddie Gray, and Walter Scott were all recently defiant to authority in their own ways, and they were all killed.
Compare their fates to that of James Eagan Holmes, the heavily armed gunman who was taken alive, tried, convicted, and sentenced after walking into an Aurora, Colo. movie theater in 2012 and shooting into the crowd, killing 12 and injuring 70 more. Or compare their fates to that of Dylann Roof, who walked into a Charleston, S.C. church earlier this year and killed 9 churchgoers. Officers arrested him, threw him in the back of their car, and then bought him Burger King.
And there are many, many more examples. Go read this article.
If you can’t handle a cell phone in the classroom – get out of the classroom. In fact, you might need to get out of society all together, because cell phones aren’t going away.
Still wanna defend this monster on a power trip… then ask yourself if this would ever happen to a middle class white girl from Hockessin. Just for fun pretend the officer was a black male. Good luck with that.