She begins by examining the situation of one Kahton Anderson, whose antisocial way of living culminated in a bus shooting that left an innocent 39-year-old man dead. She looks at the factors, which we've all seen time and again, that characterized his life: the absence of a father, gang affiliation, being seen wearing expensive clothing despite the poverty of his household. The pattern is so entrenched as to be indisputable.
Then she gets into the specifics of the objective / subjective argument that FHers often put forth:
Anderson’s case demolishes a more specific assertion of the “school discipline is racist” movement as well. The most ubiquitous conceit propounded by the anti-suspension activists is that white students are more frequently reprimanded for “objective” offenses, and black students for “subjective” offenses. University of Indiana school-psychology professor Russell Skiba arrived at that distinction in 2002 (PDF file here) when analyzing why students in one urban school district were sent to the principal’s office for discipline. Once referred to the principal, white students were expelled at the same rate as black students, Skiba found (undoubtedly to his disappointment). But he concluded that there was a systematic distinction in the reasons why students were referred: Whites were sent for what Skiba deemed “objective” offenses, like smoking, leaving the classroom without permission, and vandalism, and blacks for “subjective” offenses like threat, disrespect, and excessive noise. From which it followed — at least for Skiba and his civil-rights colleagues — that schools were arbitrarily disciplining blacks, resulting in the familiar discipline disparities.Skiba’s schema was meaningless on a number of fronts. Try telling a teacher being threatened with physical retaliation that her plight is merely “subjective.” But even if one were to accept his strained distinction between objective and subjective offenses and its universal applicability, it doesn’t mean that the allegedly “subjective” offenses for which black students were disciplined were not serious violations of classroom order, jeopardizing the ability of other students to learn. And Kahton Anderson shows why these so-called subjective offenses like “disrespectful chatter” and insubordination matter beyond the classroom, regardless of the perpetrator’s race: They are a manifestation of deeper problems of self-control and the response to authority.
When the societal order essential for the flourishing of individual freedom is violated, you address it, and anybody who tries to make a racial issue out of it is up to no good.
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