In a shocking, horrifying incident at Shawnee Mission East High School, a Black student was hospitalized after being attacked by a white male student. Despite being the victim, she faces suspension in a case highlighting systemic racism and administrative negligence.
My wife is half Jamaican and half Iranian, she went to a school in a very working class part of a very ethnically diverse city in the UK, with most of the school having a familial origin in the middle east or India.
She was routinely bullied for being black and called the N word on a daily basis. She was made to feel like a troublemaker for reporting it to teachers and eventually snapped, her kickboxing lessons helped her break a boy’s nose with a kick to the face after years of abuse, and she got suspended for it while nobody ever faced any consequences for their racism.
People don’t want to punish wrongdoing, they want to keep things “simple” and not have to deal with anything they feel awkward about, so they ignore the repeated “small” incidents and only acted to punish the retaliation because it’s deemed disproportionate. Years of racism to the point of having no friends because people were scared of being seen to sympathise apparently isn’t as damaging as an afternoon in A+E and some minor discomfort for a week or so. Fuck that school and fuck this mentality.
This story seems like a worse version and we’re 20 years on. I’m sure it happens way more than we see in stories like these, they’re just swept under the rug and hope nobody calls them on it. Fuck this backwards ass world.
This is a great observation that explains so many ills with our society when the victim is punished. People collectively don’t care about justice. They only care about minimizing discomfort. Retaliation is only viewed as the original “source” of trouble making more trouble. I saw this same story play out for a coworker who was bullied by her male coworkers. The “guys” didn’t appreciate her around and made her life miserable, so of course she acted out. Thier boss tried to sympathize with her but ultimately didn’t protect her because she was one and they were many. Their boss started to view her as a pain in the ass because she would constantly report small injustices that on their own wouldn’t be considered harassment.