Parental angst in Knoxville
August 22, 2008 By: almostgotit Category: Central high school, Knoxville, Knoxville Shooting, Knoxville church shooting, Knoxville school shooting, Uncategorized, parenting, school shooting, urban schools
Child places flowers at Central High after the shooting |
I wish I could find the beautiful article I read sometime in the past year, written by the parent of a child who attended an urban public school in California. Alas, my husband is the walking human bibliography in the family, not I.
My own school experience was in a wealthy, and lily-white part of Washington State. Few of us there were the children of jailbirds and prostitutes, so mostly we self-destructed using expensive drugs, expensive cars, and the occasional existential suicide.
Nor did our parents necessarily love us any more than inner-city parents love their children: ours were often too busy making money and divorcing each other to notice or care when we co-opted their giant houses for our own youthful drug and sex fests.
Life, and love, are both such messy and dangerous things. It breaks my heart to listen in (yes, still watching children talk on Facebook) as my children and their friends try to process, yet again, the fatal gun shots that were fired in places that should have been their safest havens. Some of my children’s friends were in the church sanctuary a few weeks ago when Jim David Adkisson began shooting people, and yesterday morning some other young friends were about to start classes at Central High School when another gun started shooting.
“Were you scared?” They ask each other. “Yeah, it was intense,” answers one. “I’m fine,” writes another child. “I decided to go to sonic this morning, and I got to school 10 min after the shooting and got turned away from school. It just kinda freaked me out that I missed it by 10 min.”
But it also breaks my heart as other parents begin blaming yesterday’s shooting on the fact that Knoxville’s Central High is an urban school. The alleged shooter’s elder adopted sister is wanted for murder, and victim also came from a poor family with a speckled history, so perhaps “we should have seen it coming.”
Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, once had an interesting proposal. She suggested that the United States require that all welfare recipients be sterilized as a condition of receiving any further benefits, which would keep such people from proliferating and ruining the world for the rest of us.
What do you think?
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Related post:A note on Knoxville’s church shooting, and why I have to bring it up now
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:48 am
I think that thugs come from all social classes, but if anyone bothers to look at any of the personal records of the kids that choose to shoot in all of American history, they will be disturbed that something wasn’t done before it was too late.
It’s usually the same story for the offending adults who shoot too.
I also think that mental health needs to be addressed to a much great degree in this great country of ours.
People who shoot are usually one of two things or both….mentally disturbed or very troubled individuals who haven’t been taught a true reality or the consequences of their actions.
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:49 am
Loving the thought provoking posts…thanks…I chose not to post about the shooting…it’s just too darn depressing.
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:39 am
School shootings happen everywhere- certainly not only at urban schools. In fact, it seems like the highest-profile shootings have taken place in suburban schools by white rich kids. It is appalling that it continues to occur. Kids and teachers should feel safe while in school. School is hard enough! I’m wondering how many of these events have to occur before we dramatically change our gun-rights in this country.
If you want to be depressed, this link shows you a list of school violence around the globe (which of course means, mostly in the U.S.):
http://www2.indystar.com/library/factfiles/crime/school_violence/school_shootings.html
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:58 am
Sterilization? Really? Human rights organizations would be all over that. I don’t pretend to have any answers, but my gut tells me that welfare itself is problematic, as is the fragmented nature of so many American families. My heart aches for both boys and their families, and I am so sorry they didn’t have safety nets and support systems in place when they needed them—now, or when they were much younger. The reader responses on one of our local news websites struck me as self-righteous and judgmental, in the face of so much sadness. Thank you for being the voice of reason in your thoughtful posts.
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Sanger? This quote makes her sound like an absolute fruit cake. This is all sadness.
This is nothing that better social systems can fix, in my own opinion.
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:04 pm
I say sterilize all of us: we’re all a lot more trouble than we’re worth, and are sure to louse up our children too!
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Gun “control” (not banning – just less loop holes for obtaining weapons and better tracking of people across state lines) would be great. If the unhappy individuals only had brass knuckles or a baseball bat or even a knife… the destruction would be reduced.
The problem is not because of socioeconomic levels or public vs ivory tower schools. To say that, is self-protective denial. As parents we desperately try to separate ourselves from the sad stories, to convince ourselves that it could not happen to us. But it can. If you have an extremely disturbed person and access to a gun, you could have a tragedy.
I look around in my own little world. I can change what I can by touching my kids’, their friends or their schoolmates’ lives in ways that is meaningful, powerful and inconvenient (for me) at times. But my impact on my kids’ lives can not be equally replaced by any social worker or teacher on this planet.
August 23rd, 2008 at 11:00 am
Thank you all very much for weighing in. See today’s post for more.