how to be multicultural, part 2

how to be multicultural, part 1
how to be multicultural, part 3
how to be multicultural, part 4
zero tolerance




So on Friday the principal called & told Ed that Christopher had almost been in a fight with a boy at school, and the boy had verbally threatened Christopher with a knife. The principal had investigated thoroughly, and there wasn’t any knife.

We already knew about it, because Christopher had come home late from school Thursday and told us the whole story.

For a couple of days Christopher had been saying, “If I get suspended for punching K., will you be mad?” Neither of us took this seriously, so we didn't put much energy into telling Christopher to stay out of fights.

“If I get suspended for punching K., will you be mad?”

“You don’t need to punch K.”

“He’s a bully, and everyone’s afraid of him. He kicked me in the stomach and in the head.”

“OK, you can hit him if you have to, but you have to wait until the next time he starts something.”

“But he kicked me in the stomach and in the head.” (This occurred in an impromptu football game that got rough.)

“You can’t lie in wait for someone. That’s not self-defense. That’s revenge.”

“I want vengeance. Will you be mad if I get suspended for punching K.?”

“I would rather you not punch K, but if you do punch K., do it off school property.”^*

“But K. rides the bus!”

“Then you can’t punch him.”

“But he's a bully and he kicked me in the stomach and in the head.”

Etc.





We thought this was all for show, but it turned out we were wrong.

It turned out Christopher was actually planning a fight at school.

Unbeknownst to us, Christian had been coaching him through the whole thing. Christopher adores Christian and so do all his friends. We’re operating a Reverse Big Brother program around here, the black guy from Yonkers mentoring the white kid from Irvington. Apparently a Christopher-versus-K. rivalry had been building for awhile, and Christopher had been giving Christian the blow-by-blow, and finally Christian told Christopher he couldn’t be letting K. get away with that stuff.

So Christopher said, “But K. is black.”

Christian said, as he later reported to me, “Doesn’t matter if he’s black. Disrespect is disrespect. A ass-whuppin’ is a ass-whuppin.’”

Of course I agreed.





So Christopher went off to school planning to call the kid out. Everybody knew about it; it was a classic grade school show-down.

Christopher waited outside for K., and waited and waited. But K. didn’t come out.

Finally K. told the cousin of our neighbor boy he “was glad he had his pocket knife.” The cousin came tearing out of the building and told Christopher that K. said he was glad he had his pocket knife, and Christopher ran away, because, as he told me, “I didn’t want to get involved with that.”





This is a cute age.

An 11-year old starts developing serious language years before he develops a serious life. At the beginning of this year Christopher and his friends were constantly calling each other up on the telephone to “verify” things. “I have to verify that with my mom,” I’d hear Christopher say.

Adorable.





Christian’s reaction to the pocketknife was appropriately deflating. K. is about half the size of Christopher, who is a head taller than all of his friends and K, too. Naturally K. didn’t want to fight Christopher, so he stayed inside the school and then told the neighbor boy’s cousin he was glad he had his knife.

Christian burst out laughing when he heard this, and declared K. the winner.

K. was “selling wolf tickets,” he said, and Christopher bought one.

Christopher took this good-naturedly, and the whole thing blew over.





The next morning Christopher asked us how we were going to feel if the principal gave him a talking-to, and Ed, being Ed, said the principal wasn’t going to give him a talking-to.

I said of course the principal is going to give him a talking-to.

Then we forgot the whole thing until the principal called.

Ed said the principal sounded nonplussed to discover that not only did we already know about the incident—he thought the almost-fight had happened that day—but we weren’t upset.

Then Ed said, “He was crazy to make enemies out of us. How many Irvington parents would find out their 6th grader almost got in a fight with a black kid who said he had a knife and they don't send him furious emails & show up in his office the next morning?"

I’m guessing not many. I told my friend Kris, “My thing is math. All I want to know is, did you teach my kid any math today?”

Kris said, “Yeah, the black kid with the knife, we’re fine with that. Just teach him math.”



MORE LATER —






how to be multicultural, part 1
how to be multicultural, part 2
how to be multicultural, part 3
how to be multicultural, part 4
zero tolerance
how to stop a bully



^* family saying dating back to 2nd grade anti-bullying advice

-- CatherineJohnson - 25 May 2006

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