Just Wait and See
“THE NEXT TIME THERE’S A SCHOOL SHOOTING, WE WON’T FORGET YOU ALL WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR IT”
The man hunches over the microphone and roars at the school board. He stabs at the air with his index finger as he shouts, punctuating every third or fourth word with a violent thrust.
Spent, he marches back to his seat only to be replaced by a similar looking white man in a madras shirt.
“SO I GUESS NEXT TIME THERE’S AN ACTIVE SHOOTER IN A SCHOOL YOU WON’T NEED THE POLICE TO COME SAVE YOU?”
One after another, folks from the community rush the lectern to unload their vitriol at the school board. Their blotchy jowls and spit-soaked masks radiate terror. They’re here for blood.
“YOU ARE MAKING A HUGE MISTAKE. JUST WAIT AND SEE.”
Although the agenda is packed, one topic dominates the final school board meeting of the year: police in schools. With the official vote about to take place, some members of the community use their two minutes to spew a rhetoric of terror.
I’m not naïve; I expected the vote to be contentious. For a large segment of the population, police represent safety and order. And change can be extremely difficult for anyone, especially when the change has the potential to affect children.
What I was NOT expecting, however, was a room full of adults standing up and actively wishing for tragedy. These people really want something terrible to happen in their schools. They use their words to try and speak into existence the death and destruction that would vindicate them. That would affirm their view of children as inherently violent and schools as battlegrounds in need of armed surveillance and control.
This is a vision of life rooted in violence and punishment.
I heard similar comments earlier in the year when my district was trying to figure out when to send kids back to school in person. Clutching their children, they stood before the school board and conjured up doomsday fantasies of children failing by the thousands. Economies crumble. Societies collapse. And all because some children missed out on a few months of in-person school.
“I CAN’T WAIT FOR THESE TEST SCORES TO COME BACK SO WE CAN SEE JUST HOW MUCH YOU’VE FAILED OUR CHILDREN.”
I snuck into private Facebook groups and watched parents post clips of adults berating teachers, principals, and superintendents. “MY HERO” they would comment. “THIS IS THE ENERGY WE NEED TO BRING TO NEXT WEEK’S MEETING” they would say.
Again, I understand the concern. But what I heard throughout the year seemed to have little to do with compassion and everything to do with bizarre dreams of widespread suffering and disaster. Why would anyone want these things to happen?
This is the shit that worries me. Not schools without police. Not a few months of virtual and hybrid learning. But the adults who have succumbed to this country’s fetishization of violence and punishment. The adults who have disconnected their humanity.
