Wash Post: Michael Eric Dyson reports 6 yo grandson called a racial slur at Mann

[Anonymous]

Does his father have a gun?


This. It's pretty hard to get a license in DC. They ought to do a welfare check and search the home. Is social services involved?


For all that we know his father is a law enforcement officer. The kid's statement was terrible, but I don't think we need to jump to searching the home or involving social services without additional information.


And if that's the case then so be it, social services should still be involved.

Well, you are entitled to your opinion. But a child whose dad works (in corporate) for a gun manufacturer made a similar threat to my son at school when both kids were seven. The school took various steps, including calling both parents in, but social services was never involved.

[Anonymous]

It doesn't matter why Dyson was there. Maybe the son was in surgery at the time. Regardless, he was welcome to be there and, I presumed, welcomed.

But, if he manufactured the notion that the N-word was used, that's totally inexcusable. He knows the content of that word. He knows what it means and how it hurts. He cannot go around willy-nilly attributing it to others (children).

And if it was all just a miscommunication, he needs to keep walking back his earlier comments much further than he already has. (And he has walked them back a bit already, but that ain't nearly enough if he is the one making this part up.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does no one have a sense of humor anymore? A six year old saying he’s going to get a gun because some other kids cut ahead in the pizza line? Come on - that kid has a pretty strong sense of justice! And really likes his pizza!

And what are they doing about the repeated line cutting? Kids try to manage conflict/ disregard for the rules with the tools they have at hand. In this case it was threatening words because it sounds like the adults weren't enforcing the rules.

-Cub scout mom who has heard 1st grade boys threaten each other with muskets, blunderbusses and canons depending on what they were studying in social studies at the time. None of them had home issues or turned out to be violent.

+1. Dyson's grandson violated the norms and the aggrieved party lashed out. Line cutters are the worst of the worst in the 6 year old set.

Interesting. Somehow I don't think everyone would be coming to his defense if the 6yo in question that mentioned guns was black.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You assume everyone has a subscription to WP?

First, you get a bunch of free articles a month, and it's May 1.

Second, copyright laws preclude posting an entire article here.

Third, if you need this spoon fed to you, you should immediately get off DCUM and find an adult education course in - well, everything. Because you're too incompetent to even step outside without supervision.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It doesn't matter why Dyson was there. Maybe the son was in surgery at the time. Regardless, he was welcome to be there and, I presumed, welcomed.

But, if he manufactured the notion that the N-word was used, that's totally inexcusable. He knows the content of that word. He knows what it means and how it hurts. He cannot go around willy-nilly attributing it to others (children).

And if it was all just a miscommunication, he needs to keep walking back his earlier comments much further than he already has. (And he has walked them back a bit already, but that ain't nearly enough if he is the one making this part up.)

You'll note that yesterday, on his way to the school, Dyson was guns-all-ablazing about the "N-word" being used, spelling it out in full. Today, however, he talks only about epithets when he was very specific yesterday. Well, he managed to get on the evening news in the same day, so I guess it achieved his objective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It doesn't matter why Dyson was there. Maybe the son was in surgery at the time. Regardless, he was welcome to be there and, I presumed, welcomed.

But, if he manufactured the notion that the N-word was used, that's totally inexcusable. He knows the content of that word. He knows what it means and how it hurts. He cannot go around willy-nilly attributing it to others (children).

And if it was all just a miscommunication, he needs to keep walking back his earlier comments much further than he already has. (And he has walked them back a bit already, but that ain't nearly enough if he is the one making this part up.)

Where is he walking it back? Can you post a link?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does no one have a sense of humor anymore? A six year old saying he’s going to get a gun because some other kids cut ahead in the pizza line? Come on - that kid has a pretty strong sense of justice! And really likes his pizza!

And what are they doing about the repeated line cutting? Kids try to manage conflict/ disregard for the rules with the tools they have at hand. In this case it was threatening words because it sounds like the adults weren't enforcing the rules.

-Cub scout mom who has heard 1st grade boys threaten each other with muskets, blunderbusses and canons depending on what they were studying in social studies at the time. None of them had home issues or turned out to be violent.

+1. Dyson's grandson violated the norms and the aggrieved party lashed out. Line cutters are the worst of the worst in the 6 year old set.

Interesting. Somehow I don't think everyone would be coming to his defense if the 6yo in question that mentioned guns was black.

I disagree. I posted previously that the school should look into this to see if it's a viable threat. The same would apply to any 6 year old making this threat, regardless of race. What we do have here is a bit of humor in response to Dyson inflaming the situation with false allegations of racism. Dyson's actions are by far the worst in this entire situation, absolutely despicable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does no one have a sense of humor anymore? A six year old saying he’s going to get a gun because some other kids cut ahead in the pizza line? Come on - that kid has a pretty strong sense of justice! And really likes his pizza!

And what are they doing about the repeated line cutting? Kids try to manage conflict/ disregard for the rules with the tools they have at hand. In this case it was threatening words because it sounds like the adults weren't enforcing the rules.

-Cub scout mom who has heard 1st grade boys threaten each other with muskets, blunderbusses and canons depending on what they were studying in social studies at the time. None of them had home issues or turned out to be violent.

+1. Dyson's grandson violated the norms and the aggrieved party lashed out. Line cutters are the worst of the worst in the 6 year old set.

Interesting. Somehow I don't think everyone would be coming to his defense if the 6yo in question that mentioned guns was black.

I disagree. I posted previously that the school should look into this to see if it's a viable threat. The same would apply to any 6 year old making this threat, regardless of race. What we do have here is a bit of humor in response to Dyson inflaming the situation with false allegations of racism. Dyson's actions are by far the worst in this entire situation, absolutely despicable.

We know that people react differently to black kids--for example, black boys are mistakenly thought to be older than same-aged white boys. There has been a lot of research in this area, so it's not really a stretch to think a black boy mentioning shooting someone with a gun would have elicited a different response.

Although, where is there any proof at this time that these are false allegations?

[Anonymous]

I went to a school where a student was shot - and afterward everyone said 'oh I wish I'd paid more attention to the warning signs' etc... It's easy to dismiss 6 year olds as playing, but it can often be worse b/c they don't have a sense of consequences.

With threats, the parents should be called and the kid who was threatened be protected and be in an environment where they can be and feel safe - and the kid who was the one talking about using a gun understand the gravity of the statement.

As a parent of kids in a WOTP school - this is highlighting again it's 2019 - that the area needs to deal with race in schools in more direct and enlightened ways.

[Anonymous]

this post story is confusing. the school appears to be saying that dyson is wrong and there was no slur.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think this is a huge overreaction over an argument among six year olds. This should have been handled by the school and the childrens' parents.

In this day and age, when a kid says they're going to shoot another kid, we had all better take that very seriously.

+1. And there have been incidents of kids as young as 6 bringing guns to school.

Just imagine if Dyson's grandson had been the one to threaten to shoot another kid. How many of the pps would still be thinking that this is silly? White six-year-olds usually get breaks that black six-year-olds don't.

Yeah, I'm not crazy about Dyson. If he were my dad, I might be annoyed at him getting involved. But the reality is that maybe the kid's parents thought they needed all the star power they could get. I could see getting him involved just to be on the safe side.

Also, American race relations is his academic area of interest. As a black mom, I might bring him along too if this was my dad and he lived nearby. From Wiki:

Dyson has taught at Chicago Theological Seminary, Brown University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Columbia University, DePaul University, and the University of Pennsylvania.[3] Since 2007, he has been a Professor of Sociology at Georgetown University. His 1994 book Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X became a New York Times notable book of the year.[10] In his 2006 book Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster, Dyson analyzes the political and social events in the wake of the catastrophe against the backdrop of an overall "failure in race and class relations".[11][12][13] In 2010, Dyson edited Born to Use Mics: Reading Nas's Illmatic, with contributions based on the album’s tracks by, among others, Kevin Coval, Kyra D. Gaunt ("Professor G"), dream hampton, Marc Lamont Hill, Adam Mansbach, and Mark Anthony Neal.[14] Dyson's own essay in this anthology, "'One Love,' Two Brothers, Three Verses", argues that the current US penal system disfavors young black males more than any other segment of the population.[15][16] His last three books appeared repeatedly on the “New York Times” Bestseller list. Dyson hosted a radio show, which aired on Radio One, from January 2006 to February 2007. He is also a commentator on National Public Radio, MSNBC and CNN, and is a regular guest on Real Time with Bill Maher. Beginning July 2011 Michael Eric Dyson became a political analyst for MSNBC.[17] He recently drew media attention for his speech at the funeral of Aretha Franklin on August 31, 2018.[18]

He seems to have advanced degrees and lots of experience as a professor of Grievance Studies.

[Anonymous]

Has anyone been around a bunch of 6 year olds waiting for their lunch lately?
I have-every day as a school based SLP.
Some points:
1. Yes, cutting/busting the line is a serious offense in that world, especially on pizza day.
2. Kids say mean things to each other that they don't fully understand all the time. They borrow chunks of language that they hear in movies, videos, at home and try them out in a situation where they think it might make sense.
3.Boys make threats that involve the potential of violence (punching, kicking, hitting, pushing, and yes, shooting), that's what they do. We (educators) do our best to give them better words and explain non-violent ways to settle arguments and tell them not to put their hands on each other frequently.
4. six year olds are children and the intent behind their mean words likely does not match the adult interpretation. They are mad and they lash out and then they go out to play.

In my experience in upper NW schools as well at in title 1 schools in DC and in MD, the N word is really not used in the elementary school population. They call each other things like poophead and stupid (for some reason "stupid" is viewed as especially terrible in this world). In many years, I haven't heard it used as a direct insult or really at all. They hear it in music and from older kids as they get older.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:this post story is confusing. the school appears to be saying that dyson is wrong and there was no slur.

The school will never say something like that directly, for he'll just run to the media with it (which he already did on the same day the incident took place). But the school has been clear from the outset about what took place. There were multiple witnesses, including an adult standing right there at the start of the lunch line. The claim of the "N-word" originated with the grandfather despite the school being quite clear that "The incident did not include any language about race or ethnicity." (emphasis in original)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Putting aside the "n" word, what about threatening to go get Dad's gun and shoot someone?

I don't care if the kid is 6, that's outrageous.

I agree. The gun reference is concerning. Also the problem is that usage of the n-word is so common now thanks to vile rap songs that contain the word - and the people who embrace that “music.”

So you're excusing the use of the word by the 6yo white kid, with the rationale that he probably heard it in a rap song? How realistic is that scenario? We're not talking about teens here.

Either the word is accepted part of public discourse or its not. I happen to believe that it should not be acceptable, but unfortunately the rap culture blew a hole in that big enough to sail an aircraft carrier through it.

[Anonymous]

In my experience in upper NW schools as well at in title 1 schools in DC and in MD, the N word is really not used in the elementary school population. They call each other things like poophead and stupid (for some reason "stupid" is viewed as especially terrible in this world).

That could be the case. Unfortunately, at my child's Title I school in VA, some of the students called each other the N word as early as second grade, and definitely in the older elementary years.