Campus Overkill

On Wednesday, rumors of shots being fired on Western Kentucky University's campus spread like wildfire, and the entire campus went on lock down. If you'd like to read the full version, here's a link to the campus' online paper: link to story. Incidents like this are frightening, of course, in the wake of Virginia Tech. The comments after that article reflect the fact that the number one priority of the people on campus was that campus security react swiftly and immediately regardless of consequences. What I find more disturbing is this:



The student on the ground is completely unarmed. Here's some more from the article:

At 12:30 p.m., 42 minutes after shots are reported: "Armed men have been reported on WKU South Campus. Please stay clear of the area." At 12:48: "Shots fired near PFT seek shelter immediately." Western didn't confirm any of that before warning students. But (Ree-see) doesn't know. She can't get into her dorm. It's on lockdown, so she stays with friends on the grass.

About 20 yards away, Bowling Green police officer Jamie Peerce makes a discovery. One of the suspects, he says into his radio, is approaching the Downing University Center. The man is wearing a light blue toboggan and a black jacket with white trim. Moments later, three policemen approach the Guthrie Bell Tower with a pistol and two AR-15 assault rifles.

"Get on the ground," they shout at four students, including the blue-hatted man. They point their guns and the students comply.

Then (Ree-see) says something to the officers. The mob of about 20 onlookers can't hear it, but it makes one officer visibly angry.

"You want to be a part of it?" the policeman says. He aims a rifle at her head.

"Get on the ground," he says.

She doesn't. So he pushes her down, smacking her head against stone.

"Get the f--- off me," she screams. "Get the f--- off me."

The policemen move the students to the Preston Center for questioning. (Ree-see) is the only one in cuffs.

After about 30 minutes, police put the blue-hatted man in the back of a Bowling Green Police cruiser. He was one of five students detained, but not arrested. (Ree-see) is released. She declines another interview.

The three students with whom the detainee chatted by the clock-tower are also released.

Nashville freshmen Corin Jones and Augustus Quaye are two of them. Both say they were complaining about the lockdown and chatting about the PFT melee before police approached them. They witnessed the fight but say they weren't involved and don't know what it was about.

What the fuck? I think if this had happened on my campus, I would be very, very angry. The article goes on to say that the incident was somewhat related to a fight that broke out at a dance that had been put on the previous Saturday night by Black Men of Western, a mentoring group on campus. Apparently another fight had happened on campus that Wednesday, and then rumors went flying that shots were fired, none of which were confirmed before campus security took down several black students. What disturbs me about this is not necessarily that campus police didn't confirm the shots before they reacted with such force. I don't think it's wise, necessarily, to delay action that long. What bothers me is the way campus security reacted to Reesee and the way they targeted and took down the black students, who were obviously unarmed at the time. None of the students who actually participated in the fight were put down on the ground or had guns aimed at them. Reesee was slammed on the ground and had a gun put to her head because she was speaking to officers--she wasn't a suspect and she was most obviously unarmed as well.

It is the fact that these students were black that disturbs me on a deeper level. I remember we had a similar incident in high school (on the other side of Kentucky) during my Senior year. My high school had probably around a thousand students in it at any given time. Less than ten of those students were black. One day a black transfer student (who was violent and had been kicked out of several school districts) and a white student from the back of one of our darkest hollers who was as racist and redneck as they come got into a fist fight. Rumors went flying literally five minutes later that Anthony, the black student, was going to get a gun. Pure melee. Anthony, of course, did not have a gun, nor had he said a damned thing about getting one. But this was considered an extremely credible threat, because the white students just assumed that a black student would be more likely to pack a hand gun to school and to shoot somebody over a fist fight. It was an implicit cultural concept.

Nevermind the fact that the boy from the Creek had at least three guns to his name, one of which was a long gun mounted on his truck's back window, and his truck was sitting out in the parking lot at the moment. Nevermind that this boy had already brought a bat into school to beat Anthony with, which I found in my locker because my "good friend" Wendy had dumped it there so he wouldn't get caught when he went to beat "that nigger," and with which I nearly beat her until she grabbed it and ran away to dump it in friendlier places. Nevermind that most white kids in that Kentucky high school hunted on a regular basis, got guns for Christmas, and had their pictures put in the paper when they brought down a buck for bragging rights. It was just incredibly obvious at that moment to all of them that Anthony was far more likely to do such a thing. Anthony didn't hunt, his parents didn't keep guns in the house nor did they hunt. But he was black, and that put the veneer of truth to the rumor.

I cannot help but think that something very similar is happening on WKU's campus right now. It's the same thing that makes black immigrants more likely to be deported than whites. Referees are more likely to penalize players with black uniforms on than any other color, because many people psychologically identify shades of black with aggression. Go google these things and read some books--the experiences are everywhere. Black enthusiasm is often misinterpreted as black aggression, a lesson I had only read about but learned the hard way when Dante was in kindergarten. His teacher sent me home a note complaining about how aggressive he was on the playground and how he had hit another child. My son was big for his age, especially then, and I didn't want any sort of bullying going on, so I punished him and immediately called for a teacher conference. I asked her about "the fight" and she looked at me strangely and said there had been no fight. I asked her what she meant by him being aggressive, and showed her the note she had written. Turns out Dante had been twirling around in a circle and some kid had run into him and fallen down. But Dante had been interpreted as the careless and aggressive party, not the victim of some other child. It just got worse from there. To the point where if I ever run into that woman outside of the school setting, I will beat her. And I believe that strongly enough to post it publicly.

While it's important for universities to respond swiftly and competently to threats of violence on campus, I believe there needs to be some pushing on what happened here, instead of a round of pats on the back. This should never turn into a return aggression at all costs kind of stance for any university. This sort of belief system and behavioral reaction is far too common in a society that at every turn swears it's "over" race issues. If we were over race issues, we wouldn't be hearing questions like "Is America ready for a black president?" And unarmed women like Reesee wouldn't be shoved to the ground with a gun to her head for daring to speak up against unnecessary violence.