My wife is a K-12 music teacher at a pubic school. Students are not allowed to have their cell phones or iPads out in class for personal use, every student knows that. If my wife tells a student to put their device away and they refuse, what is she to do? I think we’d all agree she is not to violently pull them by their hair, body slam them, then drag them and their desk across the floor. And if she calls in the security guard, we’d certainly expect he would also not do this.
Tragically, this is what happened to a 16-year-old black girl at Spring Valley High School in Columbia, South Carolina. The incident was videotaped by a classmate:
Watching this video should make any parent gasp with horror imaging their child being treated this way at school. I’m so thankful for video technology that forces police officers to be held accountable, considering our nation’s formative history of police officers brutalizing black people without any repercussions, and the more recent history of police officers’ side of the story always being taken as dogma with no authority around to say otherwise. I’m also very thankful for video technology as it protects the many stand-up police officers when they are being falsely accused in what has become a very highly scrutinized job.
Back to my wife’s classroom. Back to the scene in the video prior to the Deputy Ben Fields laying hands on the girl. The girl isn’t moving. She is disrupting class. What is the officer to do? It’s one thing to condemn him for his actions (he got fired and the FBI is investigating), which I have no problem saying we need to do. But as we do that, or even before we do that, we need to slow way down. In fact, we need to pause the scene altogether and walk around in it (Remember that sweet slow-mo Quicksilver scene from X-Men: Days of Future Past? That’s how slow I’m talking…yes I know Quicksilver was moving fast but the scene was slow, you get the picture!)
This is the South. Not only built by systemic racism against blacks, but a place where overt forms of racism are still frequent and in certain subcultures, celebrated much more so than you will find in the North. We’ve got to swim in these waters. It doesn’t automatically mean this officer is overtly racist, but the truth must be acknowledged that his surrounding culture is marred and marked by it and as we are all only human, our surrounding culture does affect our views and actions. It takes an incredible amount of intentionality to unlearn what our surrounding culture has taught us. Had Deputy Ben Fields been that intentional?
This girl is in foster care. Being in foster care doesn’t mean you are going to be insubordinate or violent, but there is a reason someone is in foster care. Usually a traumatic reason. Usually traumatic reasons. When trauma is a major part of a child’s upbringing, it is going to mold and shape them and will be acted out upon. This doesn’t get this girl off the hook, but it needs to be understood.
Working with youth is difficult. Very difficult. Working with foster care youth who have undergone trauma is even more difficult. It requires not only special training and understanding, but it requires a special calling. Parents who adopt traumatized children from the foster care system know ahead of time, expect, and plan for their new child to run away, do drugs, be sexually promiscuous, have angry or violent outbursts, and/or to commit crimes. And they love them anyway. They know what they are getting themselves into. When this officer applied for the job of being a security officer at a high school where he’d be dealing with children who have undergone trauma, did he know what he was getting himself into? He should have. Those who hired him should have.
The officer is an adult.
The girl is a child.
I don’t care if the child hit the adult, the adult doesn’t pull hair, body slam, and drag the child across a room. That is how a child responds to a child on a playground, not how a mature responsible adult responds to a child. Children respond this way because their pride is threatened. Mature adults do not respond this way because they are developmentally superior to a child, can swallow their pride, and let calmer heads prevail. They don’t need to win a power struggle–especially over a child!
As an added side note, re-watch the video and imagine that one of your kids is one of the other students sitting in the class. This is a violent memory they will now never forget. A memory I hope my child never has to experience. A memory that could have been avoided entirely.
So what should this security officer have done?
At this point, yes we could say “anything besides what he did” and we’d probably be correct. But that’s too easy. Let’s brainstorm some ideas. The first thing he should have done is everything I just wrote about. He should have been more prepared to be in this position and to understand this situation. I think the reason people don’t want to offer alternative solutions is because they know they know none of them will be perfect, all would be difficult, and scrutiny abounds. Let’s do it anyway.
He could have brought in more adults into the classroom such as the principal, support staff, guidance counselors, or even the girl’s foster parents.
He could have evacuated the classroom of the rest of the kids so that the girl didn’t have anyone around her to impress. Remove the audience, remove the power struggle.
He could have pulled out a video camera himself and recorded a conversation where he was calmly asking her to remove herself from the classroom. (Body cameras anyone?) This way he’d have his own defense if the girl started to instigate violence. If need be, he and the other adults in the room could have calmly and peacefully slid her desk into the hallway with her in it. Desks slide pretty easily on those slippery schoolroom floors. If she decided to thrash or flail at that point, it would all be on video tape. If the officer or another adult got hit, they could handle it, they are adults. If she escalated to the point of uncontrollable violence, she could have been put into a non-violent submission hold and/or restrained calmly and peacefully by a group of adults.
These seem like dramatic measures, sure, but nothing as dramatic as what happened. If the officer felt the situation dire enough to be as dramatic as he was, then certainly these other courses of action would have been just as feasible.
Maybe you have more ideas but there are 3 to start with, all of which would have protected this girl and would have prevented this officer from committing a violent crime.
Did the fact this girl is black and the officer is white push him to be violent? Push him to treat her as if she didn’t matter?
- It certainly follows a disturbing pattern (both historical and contemporary)
- It actually doesn’t matter what his motives were. What he did was awful. If it was your child you’d want him prosecuted. We don’t need to try to justify his action by saying “it would have happened the same way if it was a white kid.” It probably wouldn’t have happened the same way it it was a white kid, but even saying this is an attempt to justify an obvious, unnecessary assault of a child.
“Yeah but the girl should still be punished for being insubordinate.” No one is disagreeing with that. But punishment for insubordination should not equate to being thrown around like a rag doll.
We can look at this act with hindsight and yet again unite under the banner that #BlackLivesMatter, even the insubordinate ones, even the ones in foster care who are going to act out, even the ones that deserve discipline. For almost all of our country’s history, black lives have not mattered. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter.
A child sassing off to a teacher and refusing to leave a classroom should never end with them being body slammed and dragged.
Ever.
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I’m the oddball. I watched the video several times before the color of the police officer and student’s respective races even registered with me, so it was upsetting to see him manhandle her and equally upsetting to see the girl hit him repeatedly as well (as seen in videos with other vantage points). Perhaps it’s an all-around lack of respect. She needed to follow the rules and be respectful. He overstepped his bounds. I’m not victim blaming. She was definitely wrong, however, did punishment fit the crime and all that jazz.
It also reminded me of a situation when I was in elementary school in the 80s when a teacher mistreated a special needs student exactly this way. The student wasn’t doing anything disruptive, just slow getting his work done. This incident has stuck with me all these years because it was so upsetting, uncalled for, and horrible. Nothing happened to that teacher either. That person taught for many more years.
Hi Melanie, thanks so much for replying. These are such sad situation and honestly it’s brave of you to be honest about it and help show both angles. And I hope that in my post it didn’t sound like I wasn’t letting the girl off the hook for her behavior. The sad thing is, like in the story of your childhood, these sorts of things happen a lot when there is no video camera around and they are very scarring and there is no accountability for them. While the girl is culpable for her behavior, what really struck me was that she is a child and the officer is an adult. I think adult’s need to be held to a higher standard than children and to me, the officer was acting as a child instead of a mature responsible adult. I also have a big soft spot in my heart for inner city kids (and foster kids) as a bulk of our ministry is done with them so I’m familiar with the emotional impairment that some of them have. They are responsible for their behavior, but many of them have been dealt a really tough hand from birth.
ALL lives matter. Including the officer’s. This child had a hard life. Ok, a lot of people I know, including professionals, had a rough life but do disrespect other human beings. Yes, everyone says he could have done differently but NO ONE has that job of the officer. That girl was violent, who is to say she wouldn’t have hurt someone else in her loss of control.
Sharon, If I may, saying that all lives matter is a true statement but a remarkably unnecessary one.
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/current/nation/problem-saying-all-lives-matter
Hi Sharon, I definitely affirm your heart that all lives matter, but I don’t think anyone is arguing that the Deputy’s life doesn’t matter. People are pointing out a violent overreaction, a punishment that didn’t fit the crime, that has followed a pattern of such overreactions throughout our nation’s history. If there was no pattern, there would be no uproar over this. In fact, if there was no pattern, there would be no “Black Lives Matter” mantra at all. I also think it’s important in this situation is to see that people aren’t letting this girl off the hook. Her behavior was inexcusable. But the uproar is not over an insubordinate teenage girl, that happens in schools every day. The uproar is over this deputy who did what he did in response, which is not the normal MO for handling these situations. And it happened to get caught on video.
It’s not necessarily true that no one has the job of that officer. There are police security officers at schools all over the country that are in situations like the one Deputy Fields was facing and did not respond the way he did.
I do hope this is a chance to see the bigger implications of what are happening here, knowing the girl isn’t being let off the hook, but the deputy needs to be held to a higher standard than a child, and it’s important to identify patterns when they emerge, particularly patterns where those who have been historically oppressed by systemic injustice are treated as if they don’t matter. We might agree to disagree and that’s okay, but I think there’s a lot going on here that needs to be brought into the equation. I did a follow-up post to this one, not sure if you’ve seen it yet, but I hope it’s helpful: http://www.atacrossroads.net/defending-whiteness-violence-of-nj-teen-used-to-justify-violence-of-sc-deputy/