DCHS Students Brawl at Gallery Place

[Anonymous]

What's important about this discussion is that it brings out the true feeling towards the children of this city. It's depressing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh please!!! U can wipe and flush this crap about racial overtones. Let y'all tell it I am affiliated with Eastern, McKinley and probably many others. It is a black and white issue and if you don't think so, then let me be the first one to call you DAC on this forum. Both schools are principaled by whites and here we are acting like that this is an insignificant factor.
While the gentrification mafia uses the pre-notion that any school lead by AAs is deficiant in a prescribed category. I am the first one to embrace familiarity brings comfort and those who look like us are better teach us. So in retrospect I agree with the snowflake society.

Wait - your point is that the kids fought at Gallery Place because their respective high schools' principals are white? I'm intrigued - please explain further.

is her point that bad kids will listen to authority figures who are the same color as them? fucking lol.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh please!!! U can wipe and flush this crap about racial overtones. Let y'all tell it I am affiliated with Eastern, McKinley and probably many others. It is a black and white issue and if you don't think so, then let me be the first one to call you DAC on this forum. Both schools are principaled by whites and here we are acting like that this is an insignificant factor.

While the gentrification mafia uses the pre-notion that any school lead by AAs is deficiant in a prescribed category. I am the first one to embrace familiarity brings comfort and those who look like us are better teach us. So in retrospect I agree with the snowflake society.

This my first exposure to the World Salad Lady!

Sincerely,
Lifetime Member of the "Snowflake Society" (according to WSL)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh please!!! U can wipe and flush this crap about racial overtones. Let y'all tell it I am affiliated with Eastern, McKinley and probably many others. It is a black and white issue and if you don't think so, then let me be the first one to call you DAC on this forum. Both schools are principaled by whites and here we are acting like that this is an insignificant factor.
While the gentrification mafia uses the pre-notion that any school lead by AAs is deficiant in a prescribed category. I am the first one to embrace familiarity brings comfort and those who look like us are better teach us. So in retrospect I agree with the snowflake society.

Wait - your point is that the kids fought at Gallery Place because their respective high schools' principals are white? I'm intrigued - please explain further.

is her point that bad kids will listen to authority figures who are the same color as them? fucking lol.

Perhaps her point is that a principal raised in the ghetto would know how to intimidate his students.

[Anonymous]

Why would you assume a principal of color was raised in the ghetto? Black people live everywhere, it's the 2000s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:11:00--nicely done. Perhaps it could be added to the FAQ?

Thank you. Can we also add "East Bumblefuck" which someone posted a couple of days ago?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why would you assume a principal of color was raised in the ghetto? Black people live everywhere, it's the 2000s.

I think that was a sarcastic remark to the previous absurd point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Horrible, and sad to think what these brawling thugs progress to later:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/he-was-almost-unrecognizable-beating-victims-wife-testifies/2013/04/30/59ee8078-b1a6-11e2-bbf2-a6f9e9d79e19_story.html

No way will I send a child of mine to a DC public high school.

My kid was safe in her DC public high school. It was when she went to private school that she was sexually assaulted. She also got drugs and alcohol from her addicted rich friends. (Hmmm, at least two heroin addicts that I knew of. I'm sure there were more.)

You folks do what you want but upper middle class white kids are pretty good at hurting each other in very serious ways and getting away with it. Your kid has a lot more to fear from his/her rich white friends than from the average working class/poor black kid at DCPS. But I know that it's even pointless to raise this in this forum when the fear has gripped everyone by the throat.

This is of course why poor children and their families refuse to send their kids to places like NCS, Maret, and Sidwell Friends. They're simply too dangerous to attend. You should write a column on this subject in Slate.

Yep, go ahead and be sarcastic. It doesn't change the fact that the anxiety about your children in DCPS is way overblown. What well-to-do white parents have to worry about is the well-to-do white kids that their children actually hang out with. Your kids aren't going to run with the working class/poor black kids who are getting into these fights. Nope, they're going to face much bigger challenges coping with the craziness in their own peer group, which, as was mentioned above, includes a growing interest in heroin use.

But then this is typically the way people think. Every college tour we took, the tour guides made a big deal of all the "blue lights" on campus so anyone who was attacked could call for help. But the truth is that most sexual assaults are committed by someone known to the victim, not some stranger jumping out of the bushes at night on a college campus. It's the same with your kids.

Applause to you and to "word salad lady." The levels of thinly veiled racism and racist microaggressions are staggering not just on this forum, but on this entire website. Do some critical thinking, y'all. Watch some Melissa Harris-Perry or read The New Jim Crow. Talk to the Black parents at your DCPCS. Leave your snug neighborhood bubbles. Think about why the sight of a bunch of Black kids talking loudly makes you afraid, but the sight of white boys yelling at a football game in a bar doesn't. Think about the lives of these kids' great-great-grandparents and how they compared to the lives of yours. Think about the long line of privilege that resulted in you, in this moment, sitting at a computer and making cracks that "Wilson students" (Black kids, don't even START to act like you don't mean Black kids) are "too stupid" to do anything but brawl. Just listen to the experiences of people whose life paths diverge wildly from yours. Listen with an open mind. You might learn something.

[Anonymous]

1000+

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Applause to you and to "word salad lady." The levels of thinly veiled racism and racist microaggressions are staggering not just on this forum, but on this entire website. Do some critical thinking, y'all. Watch some Melissa Harris-Perry or read The New Jim Crow. Talk to the Black parents at your DCPCS. Leave your snug neighborhood bubbles. Think about why the sight of a bunch of Black kids talking loudly makes you afraid, but the sight of white boys yelling at a football game in a bar doesn't. Think about the lives of these kids' great-great-grandparents and how they compared to the lives of yours. Think about the long line of privilege that resulted in you, in this moment, sitting at a computer and making cracks that "Wilson students" (Black kids, don't even START to act like you don't mean Black kids) are "too stupid" to do anything but brawl. Just listen to the experiences of people whose life paths diverge wildly from yours. Listen with an open mind. You might learn something.

New WSL parent here -- I've read and enjoyed New Jim Crow and agree with many of Michelle Alexander's arguments, and not sure what that has to do with this sort of blatant anti-social behavior. These kids rightly are not going into the system for this kind of behavior and DC is exceedingly lenient with juvenile offenders anyway, but it's fair to call out bad behavior where it's obvious. But I do think people need to readjust their outrage meters to consider that we live in an era where mobile devices share a bizarre range of wierd random public things that were never shared before (subway fights, gallon smashing, etc) It's really not newsworthy other than it will promote site traffic and get the attention of otherwise disinterested parties. I know enough about the schools to know this reflects less on the schools than the individuals involved. At a minimum you have to concede some degree of disturbing the peace, even it involved willing combatants, not to mention the threat to people uninvolved and caught in the middle.

[Anonymous]

Thoughtful, intelligent postings have no place in a WSL thread. To her, you are just part of the stroller brigade, white people's council, snowflake society, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Applause to you and to "word salad lady." The levels of thinly veiled racism and racist microaggressions are staggering not just on this forum, but on this entire website. Do some critical thinking, y'all. Watch some Melissa Harris-Perry or read The New Jim Crow. Talk to the Black parents at your DCPCS. Leave your snug neighborhood bubbles. Think about why the sight of a bunch of Black kids talking loudly makes you afraid, but the sight of white boys yelling at a football game in a bar doesn't. Think about the lives of these kids' great-great-grandparents and how they compared to the lives of yours. Think about the long line of privilege that resulted in you, in this moment, sitting at a computer and making cracks that "Wilson students" (Black kids, don't even START to act like you don't mean Black kids) are "too stupid" to do anything but brawl. Just listen to the experiences of people whose life paths diverge wildly from yours. Listen with an open mind. You might learn something.

But I do think people need to readjust their outrage meters to consider that we live in an era where mobile devices share a bizarre range of wierd random public things that were never shared before (subway fights, gallon smashing, etc) It's really not newsworthy other than it will promote site traffic and get the attention of otherwise disinterested parties.

I agree. When I was in HS in the mid-90s, fights were common, on and off school grounds. Schools like the one I attended are routinely treated with derision on DCUM, but such behavior is nothing new.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Applause to you and to "word salad lady." The levels of thinly veiled racism and racist microaggressions are staggering not just on this forum, but on this entire website. Do some critical thinking, y'all. Watch some Melissa Harris-Perry or read The New Jim Crow. Talk to the Black parents at your DCPCS. Leave your snug neighborhood bubbles. Think about why the sight of a bunch of Black kids talking loudly makes you afraid, but the sight of white boys yelling at a football game in a bar doesn't. Think about the lives of these kids' great-great-grandparents and how they compared to the lives of yours. Think about the long line of privilege that resulted in you, in this moment, sitting at a computer and making cracks that "Wilson students" (Black kids, don't even START to act like you don't mean Black kids) are "too stupid" to do anything but brawl. Just listen to the experiences of people whose life paths diverge wildly from yours. Listen with an open mind. You might learn something.

But I do think people need to readjust their outrage meters to consider that we live in an era where mobile devices share a bizarre range of wierd random public things that were never shared before (subway fights, gallon smashing, etc) It's really not newsworthy other than it will promote site traffic and get the attention of otherwise disinterested parties.

I agree. When I was in HS in the mid-90s, fights were common, on and off school grounds. Schools like the one I attended are routinely treated with derision on DCUM, but such behavior is nothing new.

I went to Wilson in the mid-90s. I was one of those loud black teenagers hanging out by the Tenleytown metro and loitering in Metro Center. I was disruptive and annoying to commuters on the trains. Now, I am a highly educated professional mother of two posting on DCUM (and I have the HHI that goes with that). Now, I ride Metro home and sometimes encounter today’s version of me and my HS friends. While they may annoy me, I can look at them and know that the way they are acting after school on the train with their friends is in no way indicative of who they are as human beings and what they might go on to achieve as adults. When you are in DCPS, the Metro is your school bus and the behavior you see on the trains is for the most part teens being teens. I see the white Metro commuters eyeing these teens, and I just know that they don’t see them the same way I do. They look slightly afraid and definitely dismissive of these children. The general tone on this thread confirms that. It makes me sad.

[Anonymous]

I agree. When I was in HS in the mid-90s, fights were common, on and off school grounds. Schools like the one I attended are routinely treated with derision on DCUM, but such behavior is nothing new.

I went to Wilson in the mid-90s. I was one of those loud black teenagers hanging out by the Tenleytown metro and loitering in Metro Center. I was disruptive and annoying to commuters on the trains. Now, I am a highly educated professional mother of two posting on DCUM (and I have the HHI that goes with that). Now, I ride Metro home and sometimes encounter today’s version of me and my HS friends. While they may annoy me, I can look at them and know that the way they are acting after school on the train with their friends is in no way indicative of who they are as human beings and what they might go on to achieve as adults. When you are in DCPS, the Metro is your school bus and the behavior you see on the trains is for the most part teens being teens. I see the white Metro commuters eyeing these teens, and I just know that they don’t see them the same way I do. They look slightly afraid and definitely dismissive of these children. The general tone on this thread confirms that. It makes me sad.

Did you kick the s*** out of other students in large mobs in metro stations? Did you mob-attack random adults who happened to be in the metro at the same time? Did you form flash mobs to do "swarm" shoplifting forays into the stores around Chinatown/Gallery Place?

The reason people are afraid of the DCPS students who hang around Metro Center is that some of them - not all, clearly, but certainly some - do really scary, awful things to innocent people and are a constant security problem for nearby businesses. I am not aware of any comparable group of kids, of any race, in the metropolitan region who pose a similar threat. I'm scared to think about my (OOB, traveling to Tenleytown) middle-schooler getting caught in the middle of this; I'm scared I could be hurt. And I'm also annoyed when I see irritating middle- and high-school students of any race acting stupid - including the white teenagers who have started hanging around on Capitol Hill smoking pot. If and when they gang-mug someone, I'm going to start giving them the evil eye too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Applause to you and to "word salad lady." The levels of thinly veiled racism and racist microaggressions are staggering not just on this forum, but on this entire website. Do some critical thinking, y'all. Watch some Melissa Harris-Perry or read The New Jim Crow. Talk to the Black parents at your DCPCS. Leave your snug neighborhood bubbles. Think about why the sight of a bunch of Black kids talking loudly makes you afraid, but the sight of white boys yelling at a football game in a bar doesn't. Think about the lives of these kids' great-great-grandparents and how they compared to the lives of yours. Think about the long line of privilege that resulted in you, in this moment, sitting at a computer and making cracks that "Wilson students" (Black kids, don't even START to act like you don't mean Black kids) are "too stupid" to do anything but brawl. Just listen to the experiences of people whose life paths diverge wildly from yours. Listen with an open mind. You might learn something.

Pretty much all teenagers are loud, disruptive and annoying with their friends. When they reach that age I fully expect mine to be loud, disruptive and annoying with their friends too. That's not really the same as starting a melee in a crowded public space. That's pretty clearly crossing a line and closer to a flash mob rip and run than teenage highjinx. I'm not saying they should be put away or that they are irredeemable, but it's pretty bad behavior which should have some consequences. Kids who make bad decisions need to understand the consequences. You hope they learn from it, but that's really up to each kid.