Their actions are reverberating around the country.
They are teenagers. Going to a basketball game. Against a close rival. An across-town rival with a different ethnic makeup. They come, mostly, from families that are comfortable. They come, mostly, from families that value their religion enough to spend the (not insignificant) money for a parochial education. They attend an academically challenging school.
They are aware of the political dialogue in the country. They are aware of the news cycles and the sensationalism, and it piques their interest. They see the memes that come across their Facebook and Twitter feeds, and they laugh. They see the front page pictures and stories, and they sneer.
They are blamed for their actions. Their school has accusatory fingers pointed at it. Their parents’ child-raising skills are called into question. Their community wears the mark of shame.
All because they mimicked the actions, the words, the deeds of the Republican front-runner in the presidential campaign.
Don’t you dare, any of you, point fingers at those teens. Or their school. Or their parents. Or their community.
We, each of us that has allowed this travesty of insanity that has taken hold of the country and the media coverage of it, bear the blame for the actions of these teens.
Some might bear more blame than others — Trump, “the media” for sensationalizing the spectacle, parents for not having essential conversations, schools for not incorporating essential lessons.
But don’ t blame those children. They are using the knowledge they have gained not from dry textbooks and lessons but from the life lessons that they see played out in front of them every day.
We made them and they are us.
Like all politics is local, this news story, for me, is local. These kids live in my neighborhood. Not one of them is a bad kid. They’re probably not even racist. They didn’t mean to even hurt anyone’s feelings. They were just doing what they saw so successfully modeled on TV and having fun with it. We all need to listen to some CSN&Y.
Here’s a link to a local story
www.nwitimes.com/…
Here’s a link to the USAToday story
usatodayhss.com/…
Here’s a link to a FB post by an Andrean student
www.facebook.com/…