Discussing Brown and Garner in a High School Class

I’m in Journalism class, always the fly on the wall, and I’m attempting not to insert myself into the conversation.

The teacher, a white, middle-aged, women, is endeavoring to be unbiased but is failing. Her thinning dark auburn hair is pulled back in a tight bun. She has a long knee-length sweater, which she intermittently closes up and then releases.

The class discusses the events concerning the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases. I’m sure a disambiguation is not needed, but those are the cases concerning two black men conducting illegal activities that were killed by police officers.

Sure the high school kids can be biased and opinionated, it’s in their nature. The teacher keeps trying to turn the events towards the facts, but it’s like turning the Titanic.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to keep my own opinions at bay.

The students continue to argue that Michael Brown was not armed while the teacher argues that he was armed with his fists. That is when she loses all credibility in my eyes.

She stops everyone and asks a young black boy, average height, but hefty, maybe in the 250-pound range, to stand up. She positions him in front of a petite, possibly 100 lb, white girl with dirty-blonde hair. The teacher says, “See wouldn’t you be scared if someone like this came at you with just his fists.”

I am horrified with the level of sheer ignorance and racial insensitivity. Of course, the white cop with guns, training and the majority on his side is the defenseless little white girl — of course.

But as she tells the class over and over, “It’s about the facts, not opinion,” and “people should not be playing the race card here.”