(NNPA)—It is time for adults of every race and income group to break our silence about the pervasive breakdown of moral, family, and community values, to place our children first in our lives, and to struggle to model the behavior we want our children to learn. School children don’t need one more “Officer Slam” as some students referred to the White South Carolina school resource officer who this week shamed the nation with his violent ejection of a 16-year-old Black female student from her classroom for a nonviolent offense. A very welcome counter narrative took place when a White female police officer in Washington, D.C. after diffusing a potentially volatile conflict between two groups of Black teens, then charmed with a “dance off” a defiant teen-age girl who had refused to leave.
Any parent who has gone through the challenges of adolescence could only admire the quick thinking and agile footwork of the D.C. police officer. The last thing children need is violent assaults in schools which ought to be safe havens, and a suspension, expulsion and arrest to blot their school records and push them closer to the prison pipeline. And the very last thing children need is out-of-control adults using violence as a way of resolving differences.
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