Covington Kids Exonerated from Wrong-doing

[_Res Ipsa]

Thanks, Lemmie. That's what I'd understood from your posts.

[_Res Ipsa]

When you say "shame," what do you mean specifically?

I'm not sure it reduces down further than that. People within their social orbit criticize their behavior and expect sincere apology and commitment to do better or suffer reputational hit?

So, friends that would say something like: "Dude! That's racist. Don't be a dick. You should apologize to that guy." Would social orbit include parents, school officials, chaperones?

[_EAllusion]

Let me explain why I dropped off and shut down so quickly. It was your use of the term "bad behavior".

Children develop prosocial behaviors with the guidance of adults and through their peer interactions, some exhibit challenging behaviors that can be chalked up to any number of reasons, some have disabilities that effect their ability to develop prosocial behaviors, some act on what is called childish irresponsibility (they leave the bike in the yard not knowing it can rust in the rain). There are children who simply lack the life experience to act on social nuance in positive ways and are unaware of the deeper symbolic meaning of their actions.

I don't know where you are coming from when you use the term "bad behavior", it is not a concept that I deal in. It is placing value judgement on the behavior of children.

I think behavior from children can be describe as "bad" yes. I also work in a field where it is generally expected that no behavior is viewed as bad because there is a complex casual story behind that behavior that ultimately reaches beyond their control. The thing about that is this is true of everyone. Every single action is the determined result of a series of causes that precede the person. This remains true of every single bad act in the history of humanity. So the real question becomes is it ever appropriate to describe behavior bad knowing this. I think the answer is yes. If you think the answer is no, we can debate compatibilism. I think there are compelling reasons why we can morally blame people despite the fact that they are creatures of forces that extend beyond their control. This is the dominant view in philosophy, but you of course are welcome to disagree with me on this point. If you think the answer is no, but only for people under the age of 25ish, I don't think you are following your own logic through.

In any case, it's normal enough to describe undesirable behavior as bad that your dismissive response doesn't seem warranted.

A young girl who blackens her face with coal so she can't be seen at night on Halloween isn't exhibiting "bad behaviors". She's blackening her face so she can be a little more stealthy at night.

I think you are seeing the behaviors of the students involved and to a lesser extent, myself, through a lens that isn't useful.

To be clear, what you quoted from me described a 16 year old who dresses up in blackface. Equating that to a much younger child putting coal on their face to not be seen and accidentally dressing up in something that might look like blackface in the process is quite a stretch. The former is clearly disreputable behavior. The latter is a social faux paus that needs to be corrected asap.

We of course can understand that people are the product of their environment in such a way that they might grow up to see nothing wrong with minstrelsy and miss the rather overt racism in it. But those people are doing something quite wrong and our understanding of why doesn't excuse them. It might cause us to forgive them more easily, but again forgiveness presupposes a judgment that something wrong has been done. A person who refuses to reckon with their earlier behavior or recognize the fault in it is not necessarily entitled to our forgiveness.

[_EAllusion]

So, friends that would say something like: "Dude! That's racist. Don't be a dick. You should apologize to that guy." Would social orbit include parents, school officials, chaperones?

I left it open-ended because people's social networks are complex. Potentially, yes. Normally this is something that parents and school officials would scold a person for and try to impress upon them what was wrong about their actions. Seems like a perfect opportunity for a "I'm not even mad - just disappointed" style conversation. Friends might want to distance themselves or tell them their behavior wasn't cool until the person expresses something resembling contrition. When we talk about shaming a person, this is normally what we mean. On the chance that Jersey wants to get persnickety about emotional psychology, technically we are trying to make them feel guilty.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

My highschool had a Native American mascot.

*snip*

Most of that class, myself included, just wanted to change the mascot.

Weird. My HS was and is the Indian. We were never dicks about it, had NAs attending our school, and we were all integrated just fine.

- Doc

[_EAllusion]

I think most people are afforded plenty of opportunity by their late teens to know that mock chanting and tomahawk chops directed at a native American is racist behavior. It's quite implausible that the teens had no clue that it might be seen that way. They might not have the social reinforcement necessary to care what those people think, examine why they think it with any kind of depth, or genuinely get that point of view, but that's a different issue.

The type of racism on display wasn't exactly surprising. It comes from somewhere and we can understand how they are the product of cultural factors that have undermined their ability to make good choices. But this doesn't mean they have no chance at knowing better. "Ignorance" in the sense of genuinely having no clue that people would find such a thing objectionable is rather implausible. "Ignorance" in the sense of not understanding why those people are right is probably true. I just don't view that as mutually exclusive to racism. Their ignorance explains their racist behavior. They should knock it off.

I remember when gay marriage was being hotly debated in the early to mid 2000's on LDS boards. One of my favorite observations was that eventually those gay marriage opponents' children or children's children would try to claim that they were products of their time and limited by their culture as a defense of their actions. We know their culture was giving them every chance to do better. We were watching it happen in real time. We can understand how their life-story led them to the point where they were arguing for a bigoted institution, but at the same time we also know that they turned their back on an outstretched hand offering something better. Were they limited by their time? Sorta.

[_Kevin Graham]

Jesus.

We're still talking about this?

[_Jersey Girl]

My read of EA, and apparently others such as Lemmie, is they take issue with my leaving open the possibility it could come from ignorance rather than racist intent.

Or a simple lack of life experience.

:lol:
What do you even say to such a silly comment?!

Sure, jersey girl. That's exactly what it is.

Welp. I suppose that a rational person might start by admitting that the life experiences of youth in the tristate area do not reflect those of an entire nation of youth.

[_Jersey Girl]

To be clear, what you quoted from me described a 16 year old who dresses up in blackface.

Tell me why you injected the example of a 16 year old dressing up in blackface, please.

[_Maksutov]

Another battle of perspectives.


https://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/ ... 23920.html

A Florida 6th-grader called the Pledge of Allegiance ‘racist.’ Then he got arrested.