Yesterday in leafy, well to do, Sudbury, a suburb of Boston a high school student murdered another student by stabbing him to death in the boys room.  It is sad and tragic, but my first reaction was to hope that it wasn't a Metco student who committed the crirme.  Metco is a program that sends African American students from the inner city to schools in the suburbs to get the education not available in urban schools.  The Metco students have a difficult time, I know what it was like to be the lone minority in a class.  They are praised and harrassed, fawned over and ignored.  Linoln Sudbury Regional High has a cadre of parents who didn't like the influence of kids from the inner city with the classrooms with their children.  As it turns out the boy who committed the crime isn't African American.  If he had been African American the rhetoric would have been unbearable.  The whole Metco community would have been branded, the drive would be on the have them removed and there would have been "I told you so" and "Those people" etc. 
    As it is the community is reaching out to the family of the murdered boy, and the murderers family.  Condolences are being sent to both sides for the difficulties they will now face.  HUH?  The boy who committed the crime was always speaking of the weapons he supposedly had, and was always asking how to get away with killing people and talking about how to make acid to make bombs, he came to school armed with a long knife.  They say he has Aspergers syndrome, not known for engendering violence, and was on multiple medications. 
    I would like to say, I am the kind of person who does feel sorry for both sides.  I feel heartache for everyone involved, but my issue is that if this had been a Metco student there reaction would have been very different.

It is sad and tragic, but my first reaction was to hope that it wasn't a Metco student who committed the crirme. 

As it is the community is reaching out to the family of the murdered boy, and the murderers family.  Condolences are being sent to both sides for the difficulties they will now face.  HUH?  The boy who committed the crime was always speaking of the weapons he supposedly had, and was always asking how to get away with killing people and talking about how to make acid to make bombs, he came to school armed with a long knife.  They say he has Aspergers syndrome, not known for engendering violence, and was on multiple medications. 


This is something I simply don't understand.  Of course, I never understood the need for violence.  And it sounds like the little punk perp had a serious case of "Thugism".

My condolences go out to the child that was killed, and his family.  But I really don't have much sympathy for the thug or his family.  He obviously had some problems, and I simply can't believe that his family knew nothing about it.  Parents have a responsibility to raise their kids, and to teach right and wrong behavior.

Now maybe the kid is a sociopath, but his parents still had the responsibility to try and do something before he took the life of somebody else.  But like most parents, they just stood back and did nothing, and now it is to late to take "corrective action", because the deed is done.

And I could not care less if the strudent was Metco, white, black, red, yellow, brown, green, pink, or blue.  I could not care less what area of town they lived in, or if the parents were billionaire bankers or supermarket custodians.  We simply had another tragedy, and yet another kid is dead.

I am going to reserve any other comments on this to myself.  Some things are better left unsaid.

There is a major class difference between Lincoln and Sudbury.  The kids from Lincoln get Rolls-Royces for graduation.  The kids from Sudbury only get Lexuses!
::)

I see this across the board:

When a white person kills, it's attributed to an individual pathology.
When a black person kills, i't attributed to a cultural pathology. 

There is a major class difference between Lincoln and Sudbury.  The kids from Lincoln get Rolls-Royces for graduation.  The kids from Sudbury only get Lexuses!


To me, the class that the kid who did the killing belongs to is "Punk thug".  Nothing else matters.

And you have these kids in ever racial and economic breakdown.  I went to school with plenty of "Rich Kids", and some of them acted worse then those that came to my school from Compton or Watts.

I went to school with kids from "The Ghetto" who avoided gang life as much as possible, and wanted nothing to do with it.  And there were the upper and middle class kids who wanted to be members of gangs.

To me, the class that the kid who did the killing belongs to is "Punk thug".  Nothing else matters.

And you have these kids in ever racial and economic breakdown.  I went to school with plenty of "Rich Kids", and some of them acted worse then those that came to my school from Compton or Watts.

I went to school with kids from "The Ghetto" who avoided gang life as much as possible, and wanted nothing to do with it.  And there were the upper and middle class kids who wanted to be members of gangs.


The issue here isn't the kids, it is the rhetoric used to describe similar situations.
Getting away from the "I" of it, there was a movement the Lincoln/Sudbury community who wanted end the affiliation with the Metco program because they were concerned with the influence children from the inner city would bring.  They neverminded the fact that it is a difficult program to get into, the children are on bus rides over an hour long, the families are very committed to education, and the program has been a success for the majority who take part.  Two years ago a gorilla from the Franklin Park Zoo escaped and was roaming in Roxbury, as inner city African American as it gets, at one point waiting at a bus stop and a radio commentator referred to the gorilla as a "Metco Gorilla", a reference to Metco students who have to catch the bus.  If the murderer in question had been one of the Metco students they would be villifying him, the program, and giving a big "I told you so".  The murderer is one of their own so they are beating their collective breats, asking the whys and wherefores, and do not see the double standard.

If the killer had been a Metco student, it would keep Jay Severin and Howie Carr occupied for days!

Economic circumstance is an important factor in crime.  I have a Marxian take on it, which the media does everything it can to avoid.  Once you admit a link between povert and violence, social injustice comes to the forefront.  As long as you say, like the mainstream media does, that the inferior culture of African Americans causes violence, social injustice does not exist for gross inequalities are their fault.

IMO, there shoud be no need for the Metco program because the Roxbury public schools should have the same resources as Lincoln/Sudbury.  Metco is just an example of the lord of the manor offering drippings to the poor.  The good bergers of Lincoln fancy themselves "enlightened."  They are all very liberal in Lincoln...but they wouldn't agree with me.  There are ways and ways of being liberal, and my way is the wrong way.
I don't care if you drive a hybrid car and buy "seventh generation" household products.  Lifestyle liberalism may be conscientious.  However, it is conscientious but still bourgeois. 
I will never forget the fervor in the plummy suburbs west of Boston for Neson Mandela and the end of Apartheid.  If you mentioned the economic apartheid in metropolitican Boston, these "Go Vegan"/"Free Nelson Mandela" lifestyle liberals just scoffed.

I'll bet they will blame the media, hip-hop culture, or violence video games for this Lincoln/Sudbury murder.  Nobody wants to admit that the sweet facade of the posh white suburbs is the true home of the engine that drives the violence in our society.

You see the same thing happen when some stupid suburban rich kid decides that shooting up his school will be fun. It's splashed all over the news, people are asking why, and everyone is generally spooked. Let it happen in the inner city or in a predominately Black or Latino area, and you'll be lucky to hear a peep about it in the news, and if you do, it's usually about how the kid was a known troublemaker, his family sucked, etc etc. Nobody can ever believe that a White kid with an ideal life can do something so heinous. It always falls on people of color who are poor or middle class.

I'm surprised they didn't try to pin it on a Metco kid. ::)

Yesterday in leafy, well to do, Sudbury, a suburb of Boston a high school student murdered another student by stabbing him to death in the boys room.  It is sad and tragic, but my first reaction was to hope that it wasn't a Metco student who committed the crirme.  Metco is a program that sends African American students from the inner city to schools in the suburbs to get the education not available in urban schools.  The Metco students have a difficult time, I know what it was like to be the lone minority in a class.  They are praised and harrassed, fawned over and ignored.  Linoln Sudbury Regional High has a cadre of parents who didn't like the influence of kids from the inner city with the classrooms with their children.  As it turns out the boy who committed the crime isn't African American.  If he had been African American the rhetoric would have been unbearable.  The whole Metco community would have been branded, the drive would be on the have them removed and there would have been "I told you so" and "Those people" etc. 
    As it is the community is reaching out to the family of the murdered boy, and the murderers family.  Condolences are being sent to both sides for the difficulties they will now face.  HUH?  The boy who committed the crime was always speaking of the weapons he supposedly had, and was always asking how to get away with killing people and talking about how to make acid to make bombs, he came to school armed with a long knife.  They say he has Aspergers syndrome, not known for engendering violence, and was on multiple medications. 
    I would like to say, I am the kind of person who does feel sorry for both sides.  I feel heartache for everyone involved, but my issue is that if this had been a Metco student there reaction would have been very different.


When I read this story in the paper this morning, I thought of you-knowing you lived close to it.

As for the incident-it is sad all around. I don't know how many times we have heard in the past 10 years or so about school shootings, kids murdering, etc. etc. I am afraid that it is our culture today. You can't turn on the t.v. without some show having violance. And video games? My step-daughter and I were just talking about that. Most of the video games out these days are loaded with violence. I am not saying that the violence in our society stems from t.v. & video games-but I think kids have become so ammuned to seeing gore that it doesn't seem to bother them anymore. And it could be that some don't realize if you shoot someone, it is for REAL and PERMINANT!!! The victim doesn't come back in the next episode or when you restart the game. I also think that parents need to teach their kids that violence is not a good thing.

That being said, as for the race issue, if the kid was black, yeah-I think the rhetoric would have been different. There was a conversation similar on Paula Zahn yesterday about the Duke Rape Case. They said if the victim was white or if the boys accused were black, it would have been totally different. It is a shame that this country hasn't moved too far from Jim Crow.



Cat

IMO, there shoud be no need for the Metco program because the Roxbury public schools should have the same resources as Lincoln/Sudbury. 


Define resources.  Where I live (Pennsylvania) my local school distict (Center Area High School) spends nearly the least amount of money per capita (and per student too) in the county and yet has the highest scores, graduation rates, etc.

Aliquippa School District has the HIGHEST spending per capita and per student and the LOWEST scores, grad rates, etc.  Of course they regularly make the state finals in basketball and football.

Metco programs are more than "resource allocators".  I have a friend whose kid went to Aliquippa high school and is really smart.  But he was ridiculed by his homies for "thinking he is better than them" and "turning white" because he tries to stay out of trouble, does his homework, gets good grades and so on.  He was getting so much of that stuff that his parents pulled him out of Aliquippa and moved him to a more receptive environment.  And they moved the whole family to do it.  The district they went to, in fact, spends LESS on its students thann 'Quippa.  LESS resources.  And the kid is thriving now.

Metco type programs get kids an education outside of the 'hood and that is a huge factor.

Well, first YOU define: "turning white."
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/13/icon_pale.gif

This is something I simply don't understand.  Of course, I never understood the need for violence.  And it sounds like the little punk perp had a serious case of "Thugism".

My condolences go out to the child that was killed, and his family.  But I really don't have much sympathy for the thug or his family.  He obviously had some problems, and I simply can't believe that his family knew nothing about it.  Parents have a responsibility to raise their kids, and to teach right and wrong behavior.

Now maybe the kid is a sociopath, but his parents still had the responsibility to try and do something before he took the life of somebody else.  But like most parents, they just stood back and did nothing, and now it is to late to take "corrective action", because the deed is done.

And I could not care less if the strudent was Metco, white, black, red, yellow, brown, green, pink, or blue.  I could not care less what area of town they lived in, or if the parents were billionaire bankers or supermarket custodians.  We simply had another tragedy, and yet another kid is dead.

I am going to reserve any other comments on this to myself.  Some things are better left unsaid.
I agree with most of what you said, except for the parents' responsibility to "do something" before it happened and "like most parents, they just stood back and did nothing."  I've seen first hand how kids act differently around their parents than they do their peers and if no other parents told them about this, how could they have done anything?  Now, I don't know too much about this situation, but I've seen it happen where the kid is out of control and the other parents don't say anything to his parents until something MAJOR happens.  One of my oldest son's friends started getting into trouble (fighting, etc.) and his mom called me to vent about how he is always getting picked on, etc. and I told her that he brings a lot of it on himself and she was shocked because that was the first time anyone had ever told her that HE was the instigator in anything.  The kid had "problems" and everyone knew about it so they tried to "downplay" all of the incidents as him "reacting" when I had seen first hand how he "started" things with other kids.  The kids know that because of their "problems", people are going to try and justify their behavior and they will push it to the limit.

I also have to comment on the "rhetoric" surrounding this case.  Of course it's different than if it were 2 black kids or 1 black and 1 white and the comments here have proven that (not just on this thread, but on others as well).

The boy who committed the act is a special needs student on "multiple meds".  When you have a 15 year old going through hormonal changes and you put him on multiple meds and send him out into the world without constant supervision, it is a recipe for disaster.  I truly don't think the kid understood at all what was going on, and one day he will.  The medical/educational community is experimenting with these kids psyches and the kids are paying the price.  In a case like this I do have a certain amount of sympathy for the kid.

There is a major class difference between Lincoln and Sudbury.  The kids from Lincoln get Rolls-Royces for graduation.  The kids from Sudbury only get Lexuses!
::)

And who gets the Lincolns? (or am I getting the wrong end of the stick, here?) ;)


I see this across the board:

When a white person kills, it's attributed to an individual pathology.
When a black person kills, it's attributed to a cultural pathology. 

I know what you mean - I've seen the same attitude over here, too.  ISTM to be used as a scare-the-public "fear of the black man" sort of story, which is one of those attitudes that I for one had hoped had died out years ago.  Except that it obviously hasn't.  Having said that, in some cases it *is* a cultural pathology... but that's true of black, white, brown - whoever gets into the wrong side of "culture".

And who gets the Lincolns? (or am I getting the wrong end of the stick, here?) ;)
I know what you mean - I've seen the same attitude over here, too.  ISTM to be used as a scare-the-public "fear of the black man" sort of story, which is one of those attitudes that I for one had hoped had died out years ago.  Except that it obviously hasn't.  Having said that, in some cases it *is* a cultural pathology... but that's true of black, white, brown - whoever gets into the wrong side of "culture".

Yeah, but I phrase it in terms of economics.  If you start letting the "values" question in, the conservatives steal the rhetorical day!  "Well, my grandparents were dirt poor, and they never did any of this or that!" 
I say read some Scots-Irish tales, and then tell me again aout your grandparents!

Multiple-Meds Question:

How many geniuses have we stifled versus how many criminals prevented?  Quantify....

Twenty years ago it was all the white rich kids taking "meds," now it's everybody. 

Anyway, fifty years ago, if your kid was deemed "retarded," you just signed him over to the state and that was the end!
Enter: Geraldo Rivera.  Enter: Wallbrook.

Look what they did to that Kennedy girl, she was none-too-bright and having some behavioral problems, so the family handed her over to Drs. Sawyers and and Cuttingem for a lobotomy.  That was that.  The poor girl dropped to an infantile level of comprehension and remained there for the next half century!  You know, if you're born into the Kennedy clan and the average IQ is 130, and your IQ is 80, you didn't stand a chance, man!

Now the Bush family was not so grisly reactionary.  The didn't take the slow one (you know the immature one with the behavioral problems) and cut his brain in half, they paid special attention to him, and cleaned up after him, and wouldn't you know it, now that boy's the president of the U.S.A.

http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/Bush-Quotes-ngin.jpg

The issue here isn't the kids, it is the rhetoric used to describe similar situations.


You will always find stupid, narrow-minded people like that.  I simply ignore them.

You also have people scared of immigration, flouride in the water, recycled rubber, UFOs, and microchips planted in people's butts.  I simply ignore the "crazy people" of the world (unless I am laughing at them).  There will always be bigots who look down on others.  Personally, I think it is because their lives are so pathetic, they only feel better when they have somebody else to look down on.

I simply refuse to pander to the people like that.  Let them live in their little glass minds.  I just kindly ask them to keep their stupid opinions to themselves.

You will always find stupid, narrow-minded people like that.  I simply ignore them.

You also have people scared of immigration, flouride in the water, recycled rubber, UFOs, and microchips planted in people's butts.  I simply ignore the "crazy people" of the world (unless I am laughing at them).  There will always be bigots who look down on others.  Personally, I think it is because their lives are so pathetic, they only feel better when they have somebody else to look down on.

I simply refuse to pander to the people like that.  Let them live in their little glass minds.  I just kindly ask them to keep their stupid opinions to themselves.


Recycled rubber UFOs, now I'd look out for those!
Even the SETI watchers would laugh at you...even though they don't see them coming!

Fluoride in the drinking water...don't you know?

http://www.kyle.cn/blog/fluids.jpg

Fluoride in the drinking water...don't you know?

http://www.kyle.cn/blog/fluids.jpg


General Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk... ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children's ice cream.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Lord, Jack.
General Jack D. Ripper: You know when fluoridation first began?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: I... no, no. I don't, Jack.
General Jack D. Ripper: Nineteen hundred and forty-six. Nineteen forty-six, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works.

This is basically why I reject both people and ideas like that.  I view both the ideas and the people who spout them as loonies.  When I hear about somebody being killed, I could not care a bit about where the victim came from, nor the perp.  I simply view the killer as exactly that: a scum-sucking low-life killer.  His or her social status, economic level, education level, job, and everything else is really meaningless to me.

After all, we have killers at all levels of society.  Some live in broken down busses in the desert (Charlie Manson), some live in multi-million dollar mansions in Beverly Hills (Menendez Brothers).  But to me, they are all equally scummy.

General Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk... ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children's ice cream.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Lord, Jack.
General Jack D. Ripper: You know when fluoridation first began?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: I... no, no. I don't, Jack.
General Jack D. Ripper: Nineteen hundred and forty-six. Nineteen forty-six, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works.

This is basically why I reject both people and ideas like that.  I view both the ideas and the people who spout them as loonies.  When I hear about somebody being killed, I could not care a bit about where the victim came from, nor the perp.  I simply view the killer as exactly that: a scum-sucking low-life killer.  His or her social status, economic level, education level, job, and everything else is really meaningless to me.

After all, we have killers at all levels of society.  Some live in broken down busses in the desert (Charlie Manson), some live in multi-million dollar mansions in Beverly Hills (Menendez Brothers).  But to me, they are all equally scummy.

That's the one, my man!
I'm going to have to steal some of this for the "What is a Human Life Worth" thread!
;D