CNN- An 8-year-old boy named Jaxon was sent home from his elementary school in Midland, Texas, Tuesday after he took a knee during the Pledge of Allegiance.
Jaxon said he did it "because it was justice for black people getting murdered," he told CNN affiliate KOSA. Stephanie Cook, Jaxon's grandmother, told KOSA that a teacher told him to get up when he kneeled down for the pledge. Cook is proud of him for taking a stand, by kneeling. "I would have liked the teacher to do what was right," Cook said. "He has the right to kneel, why make a big deal out of it? If you feel like the other students in class don't understand. Take that time, right there was her window, to teach." Wait, that's all it takes to get sent home from school these days? Kneeling during the 'Pledge of Allegiance'? You don't even have to pretend you're sick and convince some oblivious nurse to call your mom to pick you up? You just have to not stand up during a chant that literally signifies the start of the school day? Where were the Colin Kaepernick's of the world when I was in 2nd grade? You know how much of my childhood was wasted learning single digit addition when I could have been home watching cartoons? If I knew that all I had to do was put my support behind a social movement to get out of class I would have showed up to school in a leather jacket and a side sitting beret with my fist raised in the air. Fuck kneeling. Sit-ins are old hat. I would have laid flat on my back and started reciting Martin Luther King Jr. quotes if I knew it would get me a one way ticket to my couch. You know how little of a fuck 8 year old me would have gave about "respecting our country" if a failure to do so got me out of class before it even began? And that's real the point here. Just temporarily ignore how goddamn stupid this elementary school is for dismissing an 8 year old for supporting a cause he is in no way old enough to truly understand. All due respect to Jaxon, but something tells me he doesn't quite grasp the intricacies of oppression when he's still baffled by the concept of times tables. If anything, this kid just saw a bunch of football players doing it and tried to be like them. That whole "because it was justice for black people getting murdered" line is not the thought of even the most consciously "woke" 8 year old. I don't care if his parents are Rosa Parks and Malcolm X, Jaxon isn't extremely schooled on racial profiling and police brutality as a 2nd grader. More than likely he's just a kid with a sponge-like brain that decided to parrot something he's heard on TV 100x a day for the last month.. Call me crazy, but I don't think someone that can't read a book without pictures has been truly introduced to all the evils of the world. That means sending him home from school for frivolously acknowledging one of them does nothing but give him a full proof way to get out of class without faking a cough. Hell of a lesson to learn, but not sure the school should be the one teaching it.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Categories
All
Archives
January 2020
|