Detroit judge who threatened sleepy teen with jail sends message to Black community
It’s bad enough that young Black folks nationally are disproportionately jailed. Now Detroit has a judge who threatened a teen with jail time for falling asleep.
And now we wonder why Black teenagers — and their older peers — don’t trust the court system to deliver justice. We wonder why so many don’t believe law enforcement will deal fairly with them, and why they run from police.
The Black Lives Matter movement is not only about abuse during arrests, but extends to justice in courtrooms throughout America, both the punishment of criminal cops and justice for those unfairly imprisoned alike.
And I’m sure that many Black folks, watching this kangaroo court on YouTube, couldn’t have faith in our justice system.
I don’t understand authority figures that get angry when someone is falling asleep in their presence. They’re not falling asleep out of spite. This reminds me of teachers who’d say “if you want to sleep, then do it at home” as if the student had a choice of catching up on sleep instead of having to get up early and sit through class, barely able to keep their head up.
They feel disrespected. In the “I’m talking with you!” way. And people who build their whole ego on their position, feel offended by that.
Which is an indicator that they are boring people, btw.
Teachers get points docked on their evaluations if more than 3 kids are not paying attention, or if more than 10% of the students fail. I wish that I could have a safe environment where a student could get what they needed, but I have to meet the metrics. Please don’t denigrate teachers without getting the full picture that these are policies are from the district and not necessarily the personal vendetta of a rogue teacher.
That justifies getting angry at the district, not at the sleepy student.
There’s a pretty big difference between “I am required to wake you up by the rules of the school (district)” and “I don’t want you to sleep because it means I am not being listened to.”
A sleepy student isn’t learning whether they’re awake or not, and if they’re that tired they’re not paying attention no matter how hard they try. Physiological needs come first. If it’s impossible for you to ensure those needs are met for your students, it is impossible to do the job you’ve been set. This isn’t a problem with the students, it’s a problem with the job.