This is not in response to any specific comment or poster. It's just a general comment as I think about this crime.
I find no comfort in the potential "why" he did this. He's the nephew of a mayoral candidate. That seems to indicate at least some possibility for connections. Privilege is a word that I'd just as soon strike from the English language. But in modern parlance, it's at least possible that this youth was privileged beyond that of his average fellow classmate.
I used to teach in a pretty violent high school, with one set of books for the whole school. Textbooks had to remain in the classroom for the next period class, and most students didn't have access to technology except at the library. It was challenging for all involved.
My first day, my classroom was closed as I returned from lunch. Other students and staff occupied it during my "down" time, and a fight had occurred between two boys. They left the classroom looking like a battlefield. I don't know how so much bloodlust and blood loss didn't lead to loss of life that day. I had seen fights, both as a student and a teacher, but nothing was this level of viciousness.
Over my several years there, I saw students with horrific childhoods and beyond difficult circumstances show uncommon grace and kindness to others. I was humbled by their respect for self and others, their dedication and commitment to education, and their will to rise above their circumstances. The vast majority of them did.
I didn't grow up with much extra, but I never went to bed hungry. Often, we didn't have the food maybe we would have liked to have had, and we were on a very tight budget, but we never went hungry. This was my first exposure to food insecurity in mass and to all of the things that come along with gangs, economic depression, absent parent(s), severe, widespread substance abuse...
I also saw another set of students, some had equally horrific childhoods as the first set, but many did not, who seemed determined to choose a different path. It seemed no matter how many opportunities given, no matter how much energy and dedication was spent on supporting and redirecting them, they were determined to go down a different path. Most of them had very involved Mothers. (Thank God for Mothers!) Some had both parents very involved and concerned. Some even had multiple generations of family there to support them, something I and most of my students would have given anything to have.
I can't truly capture the emotion of a parent teacher conference night in such a district. It was heart wrenching to look into the eyes of a weary but invested mother, father, aunt, uncle, guardian, foster parent-whichever the case may be- as they tear up and look at you with pleading eyes, desperate for help to somehow right their child's future before that child gets fully beyond the reach of help.
As I meandered through various educational systems over 12 years of teaching, I saw this play out in schools that were 98% black, 90% white, and every manner of racial diversity imaginable. I worked for administrators who were white, black, biracial. For the most part, the majority of teachers and administrators reflected the composition of each school.
And no matter where I was, there were 2 groups of students. I can't explain why, and I'm less capable of offering ideas how to fix it. Does it speak to good versus evil? Is it part of the human condition? I don't know.
I just know that some people, given the exact same set of circumstances, will choose to go one way, a kind and gentle way, and others will choose to go another.
