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Florida Teen Expelled and Arrested For Science Experiment
First time accepted submitter ruhri writes "A 16 year-old girl in Florida not only has been expelled from her high school but also is being charged as an adult with a felony after replicating the classic toilet-bowl cleaner and aluminum foil experiment. This has quite a number of scientists and science educators up in arms. The fact that she's African American and that the same assistant state attorney has decided not to charge a white teenager who accidentally killed his brother with a BB gun has some thinking whether this is a case of doing science while black."
There we go, playing the race card. Sigh. What does a kid with a BB gun have to do with this? Nothing, but it "creates the narrative". We all know what the narrative is, race race race. It's always first on the list and it always gets shoehorned in even if it doesn't belong. Everyone sees it but due to the mainstream media's gatekeeper role nobody can talk back. This is why Americans distrust the media, with 60% saying they have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Lets not attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity.
And in this case, I hardly believe its about one being black,although it could play a part, it beingthe us,it seems more a thing about one being gun related and the other science related.
We all know what many americans hate most.
I don't think that this is race related, I think that the punishment is so harsh because everyone is scared of improvised explosive devices after Boston. When I first heard the story it was reported as "An Acid Bomb was Set Off At a Local High School".
Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak, do not know. ~Lao Tzu
Jails for the mind. NCLB has ruined education, by far GWB worst piece of policy. That coupled with "zero tolerance" which equates to "no thinking by staff" we are ruining a generation of kids. Teaching to tests, which NCLB does prohibits this kind of "thinking" to experiment.
I'd have a rap sheet a mile long if I was in school and I only graduated 14y ago. And I didn't even do anything bad!
School authorities in Florida have always been on the retarded side of the coin. Suspending or expelling kids for this kind of thing is really disgusting. God it is depressing. I went to school in Florida and was lucky that most of my teachers were good at their jobs. But those above teachers in the school food chain are some of the worst creeps you could ever imagine.
America is a bunch of pussies now. Had something like this happened in the 50s-80s..maybe even the 90s, the result would have been a stern reprimand and at most a couple days suspension. This "Daddy" syndrome needs to end. I doubt even the French would freak out the way the school and DA have.
So now anything that blows up is automatically a weapon? I hope their school buses don't run on gas or diesel engines, then they would have to charge all the bus drivers with bringing weapons to school every day.
This is almost as stupid as suspending a 7 year old for having a pastry that's vaguely gun-shaped.
http://www.loweringthebar.net/2013/03/pastry-gun.html
When I was in school, it was basically a full time job for many of us boys to figure out ways to make ever larger and more dramatic explosions happen. We used to fill trash bags full of methane from the lab, seal them with tape, then release them with a lit fuse and watch this huge fireball in the sky (I stopped before the principal took notice, so I didn't get caught:). I mean, kids just do stuff like that.
The difference today is the zero-tolerance rules in many public schools where even a little 6-year-old boy making a shape of a gun with his hand and going "bang!" at another kid is grounds for suspension.
As usual, bureaucracy gets it wrong. That girl should be reinstated and an apology should be issued, otherwise she'll be barred for life from many professions (albeit, as a minor theoretically her record is sealed, but in reality she's screwed).
And racism? That was just an extra little tidbit the OP added to spice things up. Ridiculous.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
Was this really a science experiment? She was mixing household chemicals in a plastic bottle on school property. It had nothing to do with her science class. It's more likely she got this stuff out of the janitor's closet or something like that. It sounds more like a kid being stupid rather than one experimenting.
Not that I agree with the penalty in any way. Detention or suspension would be ok here since no real harm came from it. It doesn't merit police involvement, or comparison to an accidental shooting.
Zero Tolerance means zero intelligence. Circumstances are always different. Thanks to our wonderful school and legal systems, there's less discretion. The bad and good part of discretion is bias. A straight-A good kid will be given the benefit of a doubt over a kid that has a reputation for being a troublemaker. On one hand, it's possibly a good rule of thumb... but it can lead to folks getting railroaded unfairly.
The "solution" then is to treat EVERYONE badly. I'm not that old, and my school had a policy of "both kids in a fight get punished." Didn't matter if you got jumped for being a geek with pacifist philosophy. OTOH, it was a learning experience about bureaucracy, government and pacifism. I dumped the pacifism, and the next kid that jumped me, I earned every ounce of my administrative punishment because I had no incentive NOT to do so. Zero tolerance and "everyone involved is equally guilty" is bunk, and a bad idea.
I clicked the link already angry at what I expected to find - a story about an ignorant, probably racist bureaucrat ruining a smart kid's life for no good reason.
But as someone who (as a kid) did more than my share of disruptive, loud, messy things, I can tell you that even before 9/11 and IEDs and "zero tolerance" doing this in a school bathroom would have resulted in punishment. This wasn't a classroom experiment - no teachers were aware of it - and, like it or not, Drano (or an equivalent toilet cleaner) is a pretty harsh chemical.
This won't be a popular post, but I don't think the story lives up to the headline.
Sorry, but schools are run by bed wetting morons all over the country.
But you keep going with that shit because I believe we should clearly know who all the stupid fucking morons are.
The BB gun incident seems to have happened off of school property. If she did this at home the charges applied (explosives, dangerous toys, blah blah blah at school) would not have been applicable. The government's standard response with stuff involving schools and "danger" is "kill it with fire" to appease the parents who might freak out if something HAD happened and the few squeaky wheels who are such bed-wetters that they'll call into question the integrity, intelligence, etc. of people who "let this happen."
What next baking soda and vinegar gets a 6 months in juvie. Hydrogen filled balloons at least a year. Sodium your going down for life man. Please fire whatever school staff made this decision they are obviously incapable of rational thought, they claim it's a zero tolerance bs when the zero tolerance has a specific exception for scientific experiments.
I do really hope the judge dismisses the case with cause and send a nasty gram to the state bar.
No sir I dont like it.
Not many are saying that punishment isn't warranted. The problem is that the police were involved at all, that's the ridiculous part. Frankly if the police and DA have time to get involved in this sort of thing layoffs are long past due in this district.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
...tells me that it is massively unlikely this was intellectual curiosity. Some kid thought it would be funny to make a huge bang at a place where huge bangs are known to cause massive administrative overreaction.
When I first read this, I thought it was horrible. One of the articles linked in the story here called it a botched experiment. What kind of loony racist throws the book so hard at a kid who messed up a project? Then I went looking for the "experiment" and learned there was pretty much definitely nothing botched about this. Youtube is full of works bombs, which is apparently what these are called. A popular chemistry blog I stumbled into explains these are actually illegal to make. And I really don't see what else you could do with these components.
Now, this kid certainly doesn't deserve to be tried as an adult for multiple felonies just because they made a total dipshit choice that hurt nobody. But what's going on here is just usual-business prosecutorial excess, not racism. Ruining dumb high school kids' lives is practically what these fuckers live for lately, regardless of skin tone.
Its exactly that kind of stuff that got me into chemistry in the first place
SURELY NOT!!!!!
No one is saying it's OK. We're saying it's not a felony. Make the kid clean up the mess and suspend her for a week. Problem solved.
Excessive criminalization is a much bigger threat to us all than kids with drano bombs.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
How and where can I contribute to the legal costs for the family of this student? I want them to hire the best advocates money can provide, I want to see that judge humiliated for attempting to destroy the future of a curious student who made a mistake leading to an incident where no harm was either done or intended.
As a rule...mostly no.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
When you have zero tolerance policies then rightly or wrongly administrators and educators think they have no agency in the matter. Also educators don't have control of the police force they have welcomed into their own school. *DA's and AGs are political animals in "some" cases and this is just a stepping stone to bigger things so riding rough trod over people's lives will not be swayed.
Beware of those who profit off the docile and persecute the unbelievers.
I see no mention in the article about a bathroom; it was outside near a gazebo and she stated that she was doing a science fair experiment.
-SaNo
Once again, proof as to why Florida is the only state that has it's own Fark tag or needs it.
My kid was showing me last night how to squeeze an empty water bottle hard enough to make the cap pop off. It made a good pop and sent the cap across the kitchen. If he does that at his school will he be arrested and charged with detonating an explosive device? Stupid, stupid, stupid.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
No. Apparently they have charged rape suspects as Juveniles in that area, but a good student who hurt nobody will be tried as an adult??? It will never drop off her record. Freaking insane.
There is a petition to get the charges dropped and it has well over 10k signatures already:
http://www.change.org/petitions/the-bartow-police-and-bartow-high-school-drop-charges-against-kiera-wilmot?share_id=dFwlXuyxHk&utm_campaign=signature_receipt&utm_medium=email&utm_source=share_petition
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
I thought people involved in educational process are better than this...
The teachers often are. The administrators, no. Most teachers care about the kids, while the administrators tend to be risk-averse bureaucrats who find it easier to hide behind a rule book than to make tough decisions.
At least it wasn't "your an idiot".
What exactly is the non-racist explanation for that lack of proportionality?
Think "war on drugs" logic. This chemistry experiment ended up producing what is technically an improvised explosive device, and IEDs like this are a "gateway drug" of sorts to IEDs that terrorists have used within the past month to kill or maim dozens of people.
I'm thinking it has more to do with a heightened public sensitivity to bomb-making in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing...
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
They needed a "racist" slant on the article, so they found a completely unrelated incident where a white person did something "bad" and was not charged. The "obvious" conclusion therefore is that this teen's expulsion and arrest is CLEARLY motivated by racism, regardless of the details.
I was far from a bad teenager. I loved science though and if it went bang that was all the better. Draino and aluminium foil? Jesus. I made fertiliser bombs. I synthesised Nitrogen triiodide and all manner of other fun compounds.
One bonfire night I once had a visit from the police due to my homemade titanium salutes. They were amused and told me not to blow my hands off. These days I'd go to jail for a million years.
"Physics is to math as sex is to masturbation." -R. Feynman
Hey now, we disowned Florida a long time ago.
You stop holding the rest of the South accountable for Florida, and we'll forgive you for New Jersey.
Most of Florida is not "The South." Anyone here who lives in an urban or suburban area is more likely a transplant from New York than a "Southerner."
I once mixed ammonia and bleach on school property as an undergrad, just to see what would happen. That's called curiosity.
To say it wasn't a science experiment because it "had nothing to do with my science class" is to undercut what education is all about - making you curious enough to try stuff on your own.
I think you may be missing the point of condemning racism if you find it acceptable to casually condemn an entire region as being of similar mind. That said, the south wouldn't have as much trouble with racism as it does, if it weren't for the pervasive denial of racist things as racist. So don't take my post as defending that.
I've seen this news elsewhere and Slashdot was the first place to call it a science experiment. I guess it could be, in the same sense as a Diet Coke & Mentos experiment or an "effects of flour on your best friend's head" experiment.
What's being done to her is completely ridiculous and she deserves nothing more than maybe a nasty look and a mild talking-to, but let's not stoop to yellow geek journalism
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
My now 17 year old Son was expelled from high school two years ago for... get this... popping a regular old helium balloon. He was charged with Disorderly Conduct (the catch-all "when we want to charge you with something" summary crime in Pennsylvania) but we managed to get that dismissed at the Magisterial District Court after about $15,000 in legal fees, most of which was spent trying to obtain school surveillance video showing that the balloon popped when he leaned up against a wall, pinching the balloon between his backpack and the wall, causing it to pop.
We've home-schooled him since then. It's truly amazing how absolutely brain-dead our government has become. It really does destroy everything it touches, including the education system.
As the saying goes, "zero tolerance = zero common sense"
Florida's as much of the South as New York
This has nothing to do with religion. This is the fault of so-called "educators." They have become thoughtless, lazy, and self centered. Don't think so? They pass these so-called zero tolerance policies and blindly enforce them. It lets them discipline anyone for the slightest infraction so that they don't have to deal with the real issue of discipline within their own classrooms. It's far easier, from a teacher's perspective, to get a kid suspended or expelled rather than having to deal with discipline and the child's parents. In my school district, these zero tolerance policies are used in to go after the really bad kids instead of instead of going after them for the real issues. The attitude of most teachers and administrators is that so what if an innocent kid gets caught up in the rules, rules are rules. It's just easier to follow the rules than it is to enforce the spirit of them. It's amazing that educators just aren't thinking.
I think it's great that some teachers spoke up for this kid, but the union and the board should do this as well.
I also blame parents, but the parents of this kid are the problem. IT's the problem kids that have the loudest screaming parents only because if their kid gets suspended they have to take vacations days to watch them.
Honestly, I can't stand the way we treat kids today. We say they're important and then do everything we can to show them they aren't.
I've had several cases where I needed to deal with public school administrators in a few places around the country. Usually it was computer security issues such as kids doing bad things from the school, or things like school machines infected and sending out spam. Similar kinds of things happen from businesses and universities a lot more because there are more of those around. But I can tell you that a much much higher percentage of the public school administrators are just plain totally incompetent, not just about computers and networks, but just about everything they do, including communicating in English. These people are so stupid in general (a few exceptions exist) I have to call them a totally separate breed. That's how bad it is. I would characterize half of them as wanna-be-politicians who just could not cut the rough and tumble world of dealing with adults who can fight back.
When I actually was in school, I noticed a few administrators were actually good people. Most went on to other jobs elsewhere (probably because they could not deal with the stupidity above them). One later got elected to Congress. The stupid ones stayed where they were.
The teachers, however, were almost all very good people. One friend I met in college who went through teach education graduating at the top of his class and earning other awards, ended up quitting from education after 5 years simply because he could not stand the bureaucratic BS from stupid people.
I thought people involved in educational process are better than this...
A few are. Gotta look hard to find them.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
As a rule...mostly no.
You went to a better school than I did if you can honestly say 'mostly no'. In my UK school race was the overriding consideration in just about everything and all it did was fuel more racism.
Racism is still alive and well but it's a far more complex issue than simply white people believing they have to make up for past crimes to black people. It's become a self-perpetuating cluster-fuck of resentment on all sides.
I think you may be missing the point of condemning racism if you find it acceptable to casually condemn an entire region as being of similar mind.
Exactly, and that goes on a lot, even among otherwise intelligent people. "That *large diverse group* is so bigoted!"
Not only are comments like that repulsive because of their innate stupidity, they're harmful because they are recasting the basic elements of racism and bigotry in a more socially tolerable guise, against a group that the poster feels it's OK to condemn based on stereotypes.
And I'm not from the south, so this isn't defensiveness. It's irritation. Just think about what you say.
It's sodium hydroxide which is basic, not acidic. Yes, it turns the fats in your body to soap, and is a very effective way to melt down a body, but the process is very slow.
As someone who has had an experiment of this very nature go haywire in my face I know from first hand experience that it's very unpleasant. But...please don't try to make out that the solution will melt someone's skin off in front of their eyes, the victim will have plenty and plenty of time to get water on the burn to dilute and remove the hydroxide. In the eyes won't be some easy, but I would be highly surprised if someone lost their vision provided they reacted in any kind of normal way: "holy shit, my eyes sting like living hell, I'd better wash them out with water *immediately*!!!"
Yes, an explosion in the face won't be good, but again, for a hydrogen explosion like this to do any real damage to life or property it has to be in a confined space and produce a lot of gas. In the open air you would have to make a monsterous amount of gas, and even then we'd be talking about a mild concussion and possibly ear-drum damage.
Anyway, the point of my response is to try and provide some rational perspective of the true *danger* and *risk* involved here.
Hey now, we disowned Florida a long time ago.
Florida?! But that's America's wang!
Dark Reflection
Gallagher said in one of his specials:
"I like the shape of Florida. It looks like we're pissing on Cuba."
Perhaps it was the only time Gallagher has ever been funny.
It's worse than that, they disqualified 50,000 black people from voting by using an intentionally broad filter do disqualify ex-felons (who can't vote in Florida and a few other Southern states). They had a list of ex-felons that listed little information about them, but did list their race. If a black guy named John Smith once committed a felony in Florida and you were a black guy named John Smith you'd likely be disqualified from voting (with no advance notice that would let you challenge it). Never mind checking for little details, like the two John Smith's being born thirty years apart. The company doing the work warned about this lacking of checking, but the State of Florida told them not to refine it.
However I can see the same thing happening in up where "All dose Yankees live" It is part of the dumbing down of our system of discipline.
Our system has been so intent of getting the bad guys that they are willing to let hundreds of innocent people go to jail vs letting one real criminal go free.
We spend more time trying to find ways to get kids kicked out of school and or locked up in prison. Then we do trying to keep kids in school and out of prison. We are all humans and we make mistakes. If we don't make mistakes, we don't learn from them. Does that mean that there are no consequences, no. They are consequences but they don't mean permanent marks on your life for getting caught for making a simple mistake.
For this teen, It probably should have lead to Detention, or perhaps up to a week suspension, because setting off unsupervised explosions (even small ones) is wrong. But being that didn't cause any damage, or was meant to the punishment should face that fact.
Her biggest mistake was that she wasn't a big football player, if that was the case she would have gone off with a kids will be kids and ignored.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
There is no evidence this has anything to do with religion, and you know it. Your vile attempt to inject your pet cause into this important issue is disrespectful to the student and doesn't serve anyone except yourself.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I'm a non-anonymous Southerner, and I can agree that while it's probably not quite as bad as people elsewhere believe it is, we've still not quite escaped our past. Things are getting better generally (look back at the 1960s and 1970s and you will see that is factual), but yes, things like this at the very least give the appearance of a socially backwards society. A friend of mine from NYC once told me, "I thought I had seen racism. Then I came to college here."
If you abhor racism, the very fact that it is stronger here than in many places is a reason to STAY - I can be an active voice against it.
For conscience is the wound, and there's naught to staunch it
Your last line is spot on.
Zero tolerance policies are for zero brained educators.
According to the incident report, "Mr. Durham advised Kiera told him she was conducting a science fair experiment... Wilmot advised she did not know what would happen when she mixed the ingredients. Wilmot advised she thought it would just cause some smoke." There were no injuries, no damage, not even clear intent. Where is the felony crime here? It's only in the mind of Assistant State Attorney Tammy Glotfelty.
Sometimes I worry that I'll develop Alzheimer's disease, but no one will notice.
No it wasn't, this experiment was done outside. The police report clearly states this if you had bothered to read. When I was a kid I did the same thing with dry ice and water as well as vinegar and baking soda. Water and baking powder were also interesting but pretty weak. Friends did all sorts of stuff with powdered iodine. All of us turned out just fine, we didn't have our lives ruined or curiosity killed. My teachers wouldn't have allowed me to do this but they might have demonstrated the reaction to our class as they did many other things. We're destroying our kids...
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
I had dinner with a H.S. teacher recently and I was amazed at how things have changed. For example, it's now SOP for them to call the police when two kids get into a FIGHT. Even a basic fistfight with no weapons and no serious injuries. "Ridiculous" is right.
How does a kid being bullied not count as assault? Certainly when I was at school there was a lot of bullying going on and the school simply didn't care (even when people inevitably ended up injured). Whilst I'll agree that the first port of call should be for it to be handled internally in the school, if that doesn't work shouldn't the police be involved if only for the protection of the kids on the receiving end?
http://blog.nexusuk.org
I agree completely.
Polk County School's justification for expullsion was (from TFA)
Anytime a student makes a bad choice it is disappointing to us. We urge our parents to join us in conveying the message that there are consequences to actions.
Yes, Polk County School, I think the 16-year-old understands what the general concept of punishment is and that actions have consequences. I don't see how they're going to be able to explain why a small explosion that produced as much force as any other gas reaction in a sealed bottle deserves expulsion, a felony charge, and being tried as an adult.
This one comment on TFA also seems appropriate:
User: [ideasrule]
Guys and girls, we should be engaging in activism instead of just posting comments! I've collected the sites and emails offered by other users into one place:
Change.org petition: http://www.change.org/petitions/the-bartow-police-and-bartow-high-school-drop-charges-against-kiera-wilmot
Police department complaint form: http://www.cityofbartow.net/index.aspx?recordid=103&page=18
School superintendent: john.stewart@polk-fl.net
School principal: Ronald.Pritchard@polk-fl.net
The other email someone offered, lbryan.pd@cityofbartow.net, is of "Crime Prevention Practioner" Lyn Bryan and it doesn't work (my email was blocked).
Remember that the school principal is a reasonable person who rightly thinks the girl didn't intend any harm, so we should be supportive of him.
As Malcolm X said, "Don't talk to me about the South. The South starts at the Canadian border." Google "stop and frisk New York City" for further evidence. Any other attitude is liberal smugness.
Lets suppose for the sake of argument that I would blame the teachers if this child had blown herself up. Does it follow from that that the only reasonable response is to charge this child with felonies?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
They really have toned down science in schools if this sort of thing gets you in trouble. My Chemistry teacher sent me home with a soda bottle of liquid nitrogen. Granted, none of it made it home, because he knew how far I had to walk and how fast it would evaporate, but the point remains.
Suborbital [spaceflight] is the special olympics of spaceflight. - Rei
No, it wasn't a science fair project, it was teenagers playing around in the bathroom at 7 am before school starts making a big bang for kicks and youtube. It was as much science as it was racism.
I'm aging rapidly, I bought a new game and had no idea if my machine was good for it.
Yes, but the school is supposed to be the a source of wisdom and knowledge for developing adults. Instead of being the voice of reason that acknowledges and points out the heightened sensitivity to the child (and yes, a 16-year-old is still very much a child when it comes to making non-malicious mistakes like this), and teaches her to exercise better judgement, the school system is teaching her that if her curiosity leads her to accidentally crossing the line on what will freak out parents, the who system will come down on her and try to throw the book at her.
Although, after reading what I just wrote, that's probably a pretty accurate and depressing lesson of our current paranoid state. Still, I don't think kids should be subjected to such treatment.
I think it depends on whether you are characterizing Southerners as racist or The South. To my mind, one is a large swath of people that have a wide variety of opinions and beliefs. The other is a historical political/social culture that still has an influence on modern institutions in regions where it was most pervasive at its height. And that political/social culture undeniably has some roots that were planted in racism. Which makes it tricky to distinguish, in modern institutions, what occurs because of the normal stupidity that everywhere is subject to, and what occurs because of the influence of those historical roots.
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
...does someone accidentally killing someone with a BB gun, and someone dissolving Al in TBC have to do with each other? I haven't read the article, and I won't read the article, but come on. I don't even care about the merits of each case. Slashdot, you're treading on thin ice.
Actually they aren't. If you had bothered to read all the articles, you'd know.
The DA decided not to charge a white girl (age 13) who put a bb gun 6 inches from her brothers head and pulled the trigger. It ended up killing her brother.
The same DA decided to charge a black girl (age 16) who did a 'science' experiment on school grounds, which caused a very minor explosion. No one was hurt.
So, being white and purposely putting a BB gun to the head of your brother, then pulling the trigger and ending the life of your brother is not worth charging with a crime. But if you are black and you do a science experiment on school grounds that does a small explosion (and you are outside) it's worth charging the black girl with adult felony charges.
Nope, not racism at all.
Be seeing you...
I am fed up with people who do not know basic statistics and who want falsely "protect" groups.
It is ok to condemn groups. Speaking of groups or stereotypes is equivalent to stating group statistics.
Stereotypes is what makes us reason about groups.
A stereotype is a bad name given to group statistics. There is nothing bad about stereotypes.
What is wrong is to assume an individual represents a group. Thus assuming that group statistics apply to the individual.
This is discrimination. That's what you should be looking out for.
All statements regarding groups are statistical in nature.
Hey now, we disowned Florida a long time ago.You stop holding the rest of the South accountable for Florida, and we'll forgive you for New Jersey.
"Forgiving" New Jersey isn't charitable, it's insane.
I could agree with you if you replaced most instances of "educators" with "administrators"; teachers generally aren't the ones setting these policies. It's school boards and, more often, politicians. As you note, and as the article says: it's teachers who are sticking up for this kid. And the only people who stand to benefit from this are politicians making hay with the baser elements of their base.
And I'm not from the south, so this isn't defensiveness. It's irritation. Just think about what you say.
I spent five years living in Montgomery, Ala., before I finally escaped. That "large diverse group"? Not so diverse, actually.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
There are more and more stories like this one. It seems that US overgrown prison system has run out of suspects to jail, so they're now after anyone. Lots of Americans deny it but reality seems to be more cruel than beurocracy/stupidity/paranoia of those in power. This is for-profit cruelty instigated on US citizens by US corporations (as opposed to opressing 3-rd world citizen for profits in the past). You're being harvested by corporate prison complex installed by Bush senior in Reagan years. Sadly, this process seems to be advancing: people are being jailed for more and more trivial things and corporations operating this scheme are now profiteering on prisoners' work - which effectively converts US prisons into US prison camps and makes even more incentives to lobby/bribe officials to jail even more souls. In its way, US corporate economy found a way to compete with China prison camps or Burma prison camps - I'm sorry for if it looks cynic but it is what it is.
South of the Mason-Dixon line. Need we know more?
Actually, yes. You need to know that there are really three Floridas. The Panhandle is part of the Deep South, but South Florida is basically part of the Caribbean. In-between is Disney World and the lost 13th Canadian colony.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
I've personally encountered a lot of bigotry in the south. Am I not allowed to say so, or to notice?
I've encountered bigotry in the north and in the south. I know it can be hard for anyone not a white male to get a job at a small business. It is also difficult for anyone who IS a white male to get a job at a large company. It works both ways. As long as we enforce quotas and give preference to a group, no matter who the group is, that is racism.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
You forgot the worst part of zero tolerance: that the lesson schools are teaching to kids is that heavy-handed, inflexible rules and imposing authority is normal. The next generation isn't going to overturn the patriot act or roll back arbitrary and secret no fly lists, or demand that the government abide by the constitution because they will be used to having absolutely no rights, save what the authority lets them have.
I don't know if it will actually turn out that way, I had it drilled into me up through high school that marijuana was basically heroin, that condoms didn't work, that premarital sex would destroy my life, that God hates both of those things and that homosexuality is evil. Granted, I hate being high, was unsuccessful in most attempts to get laid, and am not gay, but none of that was due to what they told me in classes. Moreover I'm agnostic now. So hopefully zero tolerance will have an opposite effect and get kids to realize from an early age that they MUST fight for their rights. Still, I'd rather us not run that experiment. If when I'm an old man, I have to submit to a prostate check every time I get on a hoverbus because these youngsters were trained with zero tolerance not to question authority, I'm gonna be pissed.
The girl wanted to find out what happens if she mixes aluminum and drain cleaner. Her findings: under the experimental conditions (unsupervised, on school property, post-9/11), there is a fizz and a bang, a bunch of adults overreact, and you get charged with a felony. :-(
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
But as someone who (as a kid) did more than my share of disruptive, loud, messy things, I can tell you that even before 9/11 and IEDs and "zero tolerance" doing this in a school bathroom would have resulted in punishment.
This isn't about whether or not she should have been punished. Making a Drano bomb was wrong, and making it on school property was even wronger. Her actions definitely merited disciplinary action.
The issue here is the proportionality of it all. Did the punishment fit the crime? Personally, I believe that the punishment was insanely excessive. Beyond all common sense. If it were my call to make, I would have given her a 1 week school suspension, required her to write a written apology to the classmates who were in the area for putting them in danger, and required her to write a report on the safe handling of household chemicals.
Do you really think that you should today still have to answer for all of the stupid shit that you did when you were a teenager? I wouldn't want to live in such a world, either. But that's what's being done to this kid. I don't give a shit what sex she was, what color she was, or about any of the other distractions in the summary. Wrong is wrong, and that transcends everything. What's being done to this kid is wrong.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Which of course is why I suspect that racism is behind this. In my experience, New Yorkers are more likely to be racist than Southerners.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
My immediate response to this item was to wonder whether the student in question was a constant annoyance to the teachers and administrators. The original article makes it clear that she is a model student: "Kiera Wilmot got good grades and had a perfect behavior record. She wasn't the kind of kid you'd expect to find hauled away in handcuffs and expelled from school, but that's exactly what happened after an attempt at a science project went horribly wrong."
That additional information (which really should have been in Slashdot's summary, as it was properly used in the reporter's lede) makes it clear that the student is being wronged. Whether she is being wronged as a result of racism or as a result of the inherent stupidity of zero-tolerance policies (policies from which exceptions are often made for the children of the wealthy and/or powerful) remains to be determined. Perhaps both are involved.
This is a teachable moment for the school. It is an opportunity for students and faculty together to examine the nature of fairness and the nature of bureaucracy. I hope there are some tenured faculty members at the school who are interested in making good use of the opportunity.
My own suspicion is that the administrators should be fired, but I think that way about a great many administrators.
I do think the race issue is worth discussing. As well as the gender issue.
But there's something more fundamental and less likely to stoke passions at play here:
DOING SCIENCE IS ABOUT MAKING MISTAKES. Her "punishment" should be to write a paper on what she was trying to do and why the results were not what she expected. Simple, end of story.
There should be no real punishment of any kind, much less the over the top expulsion and arrest.
The simple fact is that she should be encouraged to make mistakes, not punished for them. And the most basic problem we are dealing with is that our school systems don't understand this fact.
Oh, please. I have brown skin living in South Carolina, and have never encountered any racism.
That's nice for you. In other news, the US has a black President, and recently had a female Secretary of State, so obviously there's neither racism nor sexism anywhere in the country.
Truly, America is a land of wonders.
Pretty much, yes.
I'm not saying racism and sexism doesn't exist. But if it's possible for people of all races and genders to live their lives without discrimination, then we, as a society, don't have a racism problem. Not having a racism problem doesn't mean that you're never going to encounter discrimination every once in a while. It means those cases of discrimination are due to individual fuckwads. In the same way that there will always be morons who think killing people watching a marathon is a good idea, or shooting up an elementary school fool of kids is a good idea. Individual fuckwads will always exist, but as long as their actions isn't met with acceptance and encouragement from our society, it's not a problem with our society.
seems everyone needs to RTFA: "The assistant principal called police after talking to Wilmot's science teacher and determining he didn't know about the experiment."
assistant principal hears explosion, sees smoke, runs over and student claims "bomb" is science experiment. Seems reasonable, but teacher knows nothing about it. Of course expell student and possibly charge with crime, after all the things that have been going on recently at schools the school would be neglectful if they didn't expell student and call the police. Would a student be expelled and police notified for bringing a "harmless" BB gun to school or firecrackers? Of course, so should this student. But I'm a little perplexed why skin color was brought into this, or why a story of an accidental death has anything to do with this. People die all the time accidentally and it is not always a crime. Seems submitter is focused on racism rather than just looking at what happened and determining if punishment fit the crime.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Suppose that she had been a he, had been white, had been the star quarterback and was expelled and charged as an adult for exactly the same act.
No one would say it was about race or anything else of that sort. Would that make it any less outrageous?
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
America, the land of no more freedom.
Here here! In Arkansas -most- folks generally get along pretty well. Instances of racism are encountered occasionally... but rarely in my experience (I'm pretty pale-skinned). In any event, although pockets of racism may be found in a wide-spread geographic distribution, one doesn't generally find institutional-type discrimination anymore here in the 'South'... You'll run into an occasional crack-pot (of any color) here or there... but I've personally encountered a seemingly - alarmingly - high incidence of racist white folks up north. Once on a business trip with a black co-worker of mine, we even encountered somebody who, apparently, had never met a black person face-to-face before. So, I'm quite disappointed when I hear people - who likely live in the North - make disparaging remarks of how racist white people in the south are.
It's also important to note - there are many geographic regions here in the South where a white person is the minority... I've been to many of those places in my travels. Some of them are the most welcoming environments I've ever visited... Other places, I'll walk into a gas station, restaurant, or what have you... and all of the black folks just stare at me. So, it goes both ways... Your mileage may vary, however, depending on where you go. :-)
I'm calling *BULLSHIT* on you. I was born in South Carolina and maybe 90% of my family still lives there. For you to say you've *never* seen racism makes you a statistical anomaly far on the tail end of the curve (unless you just stepped off a bus from the North to blog). Even if you're White, you're going to hear comments from people in "safe" company. Racism just doesn't *exist* in the South, it's institutional. It's baked into the culture like apple pie and Memorial Day sales. Even the way people get hired and promoted in small towns like my home town has a racially-motivated undercurrent that favors some.
And, for you to go further to say the US doesn't have much of a problem with racism has to mean you're trying to make a point for an agenda. Just because you've never seen a banana thrown on a NBA court means nothing. Google for some articles about the crap Black pro athletes in the US hear on a regular basis during games. Just because their aren't collective chants doesn't mean there aren't just as many a-holes in the crowds. I've lived in Europe for 7 years. Their flavor of racism is different; it's almost nationalism-based but I agree that they have their problems as well.
I wonder what you mean by "brown skin." Are you Italian? Indian?
I do agree that this story is more about anti-terrorism and overreaction. That you *do* have right.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
I'm from rural Georgia and during a trip to Birmingham, Alabama I felt like I had traveled back in time over 30 years. It reminded me a lot of the attitudes I saw in my youth. There are still a lot of people who were raised in a prejudiced environment but things have improved much. I was recently talking with a very country friend of mine who said something that would be labeled racist by most here although he probably didn't intend it as such, he called a guy a "black asshole." He stopped and kind of looked down for a second and said "I really shouldn't say it was because he was black, it ain't got nothing to do with that, he's just an asshole." I was kind of surprised that he made the distinction because for him identifying people by color is just natural.
Ok. I looked at the what happened and determined that the punishment does not fit the "crime". What she needs is a lecture on responsible chemical use, to have her parents called down to the school in the middle of the day and to be sent hom with a one or two day suspension (for her relatively minor recklessness). The goal is make sure she learns the lesson that she is not allowed to mix chemicals without supervision. Expulsion, on the other hand, certainly looks like behaviour of a cowardly administrator who looking to cover their ass.
The criminal charges are just stupid.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
were --> where
then --> than
their --> they're
payed --> paid
its --> it's
(I skipped the regular typos and sentence structure issues.)
How is the grammar education in that low class school district that's only 10 miles away?
The student is not a terrorist. At most the kid is acting out because of issues going on in the world or at home. Shoving them in the fascist meat reactor of the criminal system and ending their education is not the answer to making one more productive member of society.
But yes, the prosecutor should be shredded. The challenge is to get the jury to do it if the judge won't; a verdict of contempt of court for the prosecutor for wasting the court's time would be a great outcome but probably too much to hope for.
The only difference between "Science" and "Recklessly mixing chemicals" is whether or not you take notes and share your results after you're done.
I'm fairly sure that assembling a controlled environment, measuring the amount of reagents and ensuring the results won't potentially injure someone are also part of the difference between "science" and "recklessly mixing chemicals."
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
The kid made a soda bottle pop in a field somewhat nearby a government building.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
This is not true in any sense in which it is relevant to the real world. Certainly, there are senses of "possible" for which I would agree with that statement, but they aren't senses of "possible" for which the premise of the hypothetical presented is true in the real world.
As long as the real world experience of a significant subset of the population involves experiencing race-based discrimination, we have a racism problem. (Gender is irrelevant, of course, to racism, but replace "race" with "gender" and "racism" with "sexism" and the same is true.)
This isn't just a problem with educators. It's a problem with western society in general: "rules are rules, I have to enforce them" (along the same lines of, "hey, I was just doing my job when I slaughtered those Jews..."). No, you cantakerous nitpicking fucks, it is with extreme rarity that rules should be enforced to the letter, hard and fast.
We have a systems of extremely strict rulesets -- too strict. In order for society to function, to breathe, there must be a social contract where the enforcers use equally extreme discretion and consideration, where actions are weighed against all of the circumstances and it's not just assumed that every act is one of malice. Either that, or we operate on the honour system. Society will collapse if neither one of those principles are upheld.
Rules are often designed with the edge-cases in mind; the few bad apple that spoil the bunch. But you don't carpet bomb the whole damn orchard because of a one bad apple.
Having travelled all over the US (and living outside of it), I can say with some certainty that the racial *undertones* of the southern culture are extaordinarily stronger than they are anywhere else I've been in the English speaking world.
While racism is always somewhat present, even in a place like Ontario, Canada, where natives are still often treated with scorn, even if it's not endorsed publicly, it happens on the street constantly.
I'd never heard the word "nigger" used in a derogatory sense in my life (outside of television and movies) until I was in a small town in Virginia about 10 years ago, and I overheard it during a conversation in a gas station parking lot.
I've since heard it a dozen times or so, always in Albama, Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana, Texas.... Never heard it, except in a joking context in Canada or Oregon or Massachusetts or Minnesota.
Bear in mind I was usually in small towns and I'm a big bald white guy who was driving a (rented) pickup truck. I'm fairly certain that those guys wouldn't have talked so freely if they didn't think I was "one of them".
You're absolutely right. There is no statistical quantitative or qualitative difference between the punishments meted out to white students vs the rest, neither within the school system nor with the larger criminal justice system. How could anyone even suggest that?
Surely if there were someone would have kept track of it and brought it up by now. Oh wait. But forget the numbers. I like my privilege and we can't have the other colours getting uppity, best be keeping them in check.
Sorry, that's how things were handled in the 50s. Beaver accidently left his 6" pocketknife in his book bag? Silly beav, go take it home and I'm calling your mom. Things have changed. Kids even drawing PICTURES of guns are being suspended. Crazy? Maybe, but so is kids killing a dozen students. Zero tolerance is zero tolerance, if they gave her a pass for setting off an explosion at school and then lying to cover it up what do they do to the next kid that brings a BB gun or firecrackers? The police charges may go a little too far, but charging and being found guilty are two different things. She'll likely plead and get probation, she's not serving time in federal pound me prison
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
If she pleads and gets probation, she's still a convicted felon with all that goes with that. Try thinking about what that means.
Of course expell student and possibly charge with crime, after all the things that have been going on recently at schools the school would be neglectful if they didn't expell student and call the police.
I personally believe the school is being neglectful BY expelling the student, and refusing her a right to an education.
Lets examine what this student did. She mixed some cleaning ingredients with a plastic bottle of water.... Lets look at that again, she had a bottle of water. she had some cleaning materials. She mixed them. And she was expelled and will be charged as an adult (charged for what? dropping a mentos into a bottle of diet coke?)
So what was the result? The bottles top popped off, and caused some smoke. No one was hurt, and no property was damaged. She was expelled because the TOP of the bottle popped off. And YOU think this is ok?
Oh, she should be expelled because she was working on an experiment that her teacher didn't know about? Are you saying students shouldn't show initiative, students shouldn't think for themselves? Shouldn't do extra work? Students should only learn what they are taught? Perhaps they should be seen and not heard too?
This whole thing is asinine. Everyone responsible for charging this student, and expelling her, should be charged with child endangerment. They should be prosecuted for destroying this students life.