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Sure this is racist, but it's also just teenagers doing stupid teenagers stuff. They probably thought this was incredibly edgy.. They should just be punished accordingly, maybe a mandatory course on racism or something.
The racist rhetoric is definitely out there, I don't know who is denying that. I don't expect it will ever go away. It's like when you break a bone at age 40, it will heal but will always remain a weak spot. However, I do think the current generation overall is doing a good effort to push the rhetoric away.
Apologists like you are part of the problem and one big reason why it's still there.
This is not an abstract problem of rhetoric. Shit like this is actively hurting people. It normalises hateful speech and behaviour against minorities.
Sure mate, I said "racism is cool and we should all do it".
No, I said we shouldn't lock up every teen that does something stupid. Otherwise we'll just ruin a lot of people's chances in life, and they'll feel resentful and they'll become actual nazi racists.
I'm not saying it's not hurting people, I'm saying it's not helpful to start a witch hunt against these boys. They should be punished, but rather than ruining their lives with public shaming, you could make them see the error of their ways, educate them, maybe have them make a voluntary public apology.
But go ahead, execute them. That's the American way after all. Fight the symptoms, not the cause.
I've done some pretty stupid stuff as a teenager, because I thought it was funny to upset people. I thought I was being edgy. It never occurred to me that hurting people actually hurt people. I was a teenager, all I cared about was me and my friends.
I could've done this as a teenager, but I would see the error of my ways after it was pointed out to me by the entire school and the news papers and the whole world. I would not be thinking about the Co sequences of my actions before hand. That's not what teenagers do. That's what teenagers need to learn, some are just a bit slower in learning that.
I'm not an apologists. This a hurtful act, a disgrace and it should be punished. All I'm saying is that teenage boys can be stupid like this. If this was done by grown man, it would've been pure evil. Now it is a large part stupidity, not less hurtful, just a different origin. If these were grown men, they would be scum. I don't know these boys, they might be scum already, but maybe they can still change and grow up to be normal, tolerable, non-racist people.
I'm sorry, nobody taught you that "that hurting people actually hurt people."
But that's just the point. We can't excuse behaviour like this as "boys will be boys". Behaviour like this needs to have consequences that actually hurt, not a slap on the wrist, so these kids have a chance to learn.
If they get away with this with just a "Hey, that's not okay, don't do it again. Teenagers haha", what you actually teaching them, is that it's not that bad. And they grow up into adults who think hateful language is not that bad.
Teenagers might have underdeveloped judgment, but thats not necessarily something they learn on their own. Moral judgment isn't genetic and something that you grow into on your own. Moral standards and judgments are taught by your society and your environment.
So do me a favour and teach teenagers instead of excusing them with their age.
The OP didn’t say they should get away with it, they’re just pointing out how idiotic teenage boys are. I think we can all agree that they deserve serious consequences for this, it’s vile. Do they deserve to have their lives ruined?
Beyond typical teenage stupidity, they learned this behavior from somewhere and that’s usually at home. So I think they don’t bear sole responsibility here. This happened as a result of their environment. The boneheaded teenager says the quiet part out loud to be edgy or whatever. The solution is to punish them, but also take a deeper look into the situation which allowed it in the first place.
Also, I can tell from that picture that the ringleaders # 1 and 3 are total dickwads.
I agree. But I think that this kind of public shaming in a newspaper is already beyond "a slap on the wrist", but it is not enough on it's own. However, an actual criminal sentence would be too much, because that would ruin their futures, which would create resentment and that eventual creates actual nazis.
In the Netherlands we have some form of criminal sentencing for teenagers which gets deleted from your record after you turn 18 or 21 or something. These kids usually get 50 or a 100 hours or so work sentence, like picking garbage or some other tedious manual labour (after school, of course). Maybe it would even be fitting to have them work in some sort of slavery memorial centre or museum. I think such a punishment could be applied here.. I don't know if the US has such an arrangement though or if it's even legally fitting for this case.
I don't know where your outcry about newspapers, criminal charges and completely ruined lives comes from.
What are you defending here?
This is a Tweet and not a newspaper. It states facts and the reaction from an affected person. Nobody mentioned lifelong consequences. Not even in the comments when I replied to your first comment.
These boys put this online themselves. That someone shares it should not surprise nor is it a disproportionate consequence.You just assumed something and started excusing their behaviour as teenage stupidity.
I'm not American, but afaik social service hours and the sealing of a juvenile record are a thing there too. I doubt however, that there is any crime committed here, that can be punished in a court of law.
What are you defending here?
Racism. They're defending what they perceive as the "right" of racists to be racist without consequence. The excuses they're making for themselves, and these teens, don't change that.
There's a partial link to a newspaper article visible in the screenshot.
This seems to be the full link: https://eu.oklahoman.com/story/news/2024/09/19/tishomingo-oklahoma-students-disciplined-after-racial-slur-shown-in-viral-image/75294249007/
I am not defending anything, I am merely saying that teenagers are stupid and that eventhough this is racist, it might have been born from stupidity rather than racism, because that's what teenagers boys often do. It is not an excuse, but a different view point. The reasons matter. A stupid teenager making a stupid mistake is different from a grown adult trying to purposefully hurt people because of some misguided hate or something. And a punishment should be manufactured accordingly.
I hadn't read the article before, but it states that the school provided these scrabble letter to all students as some kind of school spirit stunt. Therefor I can imagine that these boys thought it would be funny to spell "nigger", a spur of the moment thought, not thinking about any consequences. They took a picture, posted it on the Internet, because that's what teenagers do these days and the rest is history.
They did put it online and it being shared is therfor an obvious result. I don't know if it's a fitting punishment though. Maybe these kids are actual scum and they just enjoy the attention. Maybe these kids aren't that bad, just immensely stupid and they never intended it to go viral and are regretting their decision now. Maybe that is a fitting punishment. But it's dangerous if it goes so viral that people with strong opinions decide to take matters in their own hand. The person from the doesn't seem to be involved with the school(but that's an assumption on my part). That's the kind of different viewpoint I wanted to offer. Don't get too angry over this. This is a problem to be solved by the school, the parents and the people involved, not a national witch Hunt.
I am not defending anything
Writes 3 paragraphs defending racist teenagers.
Yes I'm sorry. I see the error in my ways now. If you say nigger, you're a racist. I thought life was difficult to define and there were all these grey areas and nuances. But it turns out people are just one thing. If you say bigger, you're a racist.
Oh... won't you look at that. I almost turned myself into a racist there. Luckily my phone's auto correct saved me. Would've been problematic if I had to go beat up my friend now.
physical harm is obvious, mental harm is not. This is even more true when that harm is distributed over a wide area that you are not near.
Meanwhile my white daughter is being taunted at school by black children calling her the n-word (with hard R) and saying "you can't say it but we can". Soo what can we do about that? If it's going to be an unspoken word it should be for all. Kids will do stupid shit.
Edit: so downvotes and no response is just as much an apologist as the other response. Why can kids taunt with words that are supposed to be off limits? It only perpetuates the issue by reminding kids that those words exist, their usage should be stopped by all so they can fade from the vocabulary.
Soo what can we do about that?
Talk to the school authorities? That's what I would do if my kid were being bullied.
The bullying is the problem here, not the word being used.
Why can kids taunt with words that are supposed to be off limits?
They can't? Bullying is wrong no matter what words you use.
"you can't say it but we can"
Presumably the same punishment is given whoever says it.
Because it's not your place to tell people from a marginalized group how they are allowed to interact with the slurs that have been used against them. Reclaiming words and for once holding the power around the word is their right if they so choose.
It's your job as a parent to explain the historical and social context to your children. You have work to do if your child is bothered they can't call other kids a slur that those children have reclaimed. It does nobody any good to bury our heads in the sand, say persecuted people can't say it if my privileged child can't say it, and pretend there's no complex history there.
Marginalization is not universal or absolute. You can easily have people who are marginalized in some contexts, and privileged in others.
An easy example is religion.
A christian in Spain is probably considered part of the majority and privileged, meanwhile, that same person could be subject to intense persecution in a country like Saudi Arabia because of the same beliefs.
The same can be applied to this child being bullied by their racist peers.
It's not absolute, yes. But we're not talking about any situation—specifically white and black children using a specific racial slur. One of those belongs to a group that has been (and still is) systematically persecuted with that term connected. The other has not. We're not seriously going to say that one white kid potentially being bullied is somehow comparable to the history of societal persecution against black people I hope.
The point I was making is it's not reasonable to turn one situation of someone being bullied as evidence that black people are not allowed to use the n word if white people can't. That's it. I'm really amazed that is somehow controversial.
My kids should not be punished for things they have never caused and never said. We need to stop punishing for sins of the past.
It isn't punishing for sins of the past, it's punishing for sins if the present. If your daughter calls a black classmate a slur today, then that happened today. The reason why it's bad has to do with a whole lot of history, but it was still said today.
Nobody is going around suspending students because their great granddaddy used a slur in 1840.
No my daughter doesn't say that. The black students taunt her and call her it and say she can't say it. She is respectful.
How is it taunting if she doesn't want to say it back? The entirety of her response could be, "Yep." It wouldn't be taunting for someone to tell me, "You can't do nuclear physics." I would agree with them and be slightly confused why they were apparently out of the blue stating it.
If she's truly being randomly bullied, that's not going to be solved by telling black people they can't use that word. A bully would just say something else. This is a rather easy one to deflect.
Then what are you complaining about? A white girl saying "nigger" is disgusting anyway. They might as well taunt her for not being allowed to eat feces. If she's a decent person she'll have the same inclination to do that as to say slurs.
Plenty of teenagers who not only wouldn't do this, but feel disgusted looking at it.
I read your comment thread this morning and it's been bouncing around my head all day. I agree with you, and there's something I can't quite put my finger on about how everything online is so serious and black and white. If you do something wrong you're evil incarnate and you deserve instant excommunication.
Your comment being so heavily downvoted is a good example. I think your stance is the most reasonable, and I think if this all played out in the real world you'd have a vast majority of people agreeing with you. But for some reason once it's on the internet you're unanimously wrong and it's not up for discussion.
I've been on the wrong side of an "am I the asshole" post one time and it was bizarre seeing the anger of people on the internet compared to the relaxed opinions of real people that heard the story. I wish there was a term for this phenomenon because I see it everywhere. Terminally online people who can't just see nuance and realise that we all do stupid shit.
I don't really have a point but I thought I'd let you know you inspired some thought in a single person from the void.
There's certain topics that seem to instigate this kind of polarisation. Racism being one of them. I posted my comment with the intention to not talk about racism, but talk about teenagers being stupid. That was my naivety, I see that now. Another topic I avoid most of the time are discussions about gender and sexuality and of course politics, but sometimes I can't help myself and I mingle in these discussions against my better judgement. I try to thread carefully but often burn myself regardless.
I'm clearly a brutal racist, according to the downvotes. I'm also clearly a nazi and an American liberal. And I'm also a bad parent who'll never speak to their children again when they grow old enough to leave the house. I think maybe the size of Lemmy makes the extremes more obvious, because there is no separate areas for different groups of people. They all come together in the same places. Also maybe it's the kinds of people that get drawn to places like this, it's not mainstream, so casual Internet users don't find their way here, you'll have to be a techy or a "terminally online" person, as you put it so nicely.
I don't take all these people all to serious though. I'm fortunate enough to have an active life that gets me out into the real world a lot. I've learned a lot of life by just living it. There's many parts of life I don't get to experience or understand though, but it seems like this isn't the place to get to know them.
Maybe it's best if I just stick to the memes and the star trek and get my news feed from a different source.
I'm the same, I have an active life and don't take it seriously. I find it easier on Lemmy because you can put it down to a crazy instance and you can't see your overall upvotes so nothing matters! Me and my friends enjoy going back to my AITAH post to laugh at the insanity of online people, it makes a great party story. Keep posting sense!