Freddogg Off The Chain

A few years ago during halftime of a football game a young mother came up to me and asked,” is it true that you told your students that if they haven’t been arrested then they weren’t getting out much? What kind of message is that?”
“It simply means getting arrested is easy; that the branches of enforcement are tripping over each other to collar people and that teenagers are the easiest of targets from underage drinking to squealing tires after leaving a parking space.”
“And did you also tell them to never disrespect someone then just leave them standing there. That it is better to just follow through and kill them that way you know the person won’t go home and seethe before returning heavily armed on a mission to annihilate their entire family. What is the message there?”
The message is “don’t disrespect people especially if it involves the essence of whom they are whether that be student or a worker and never mess with a person inside their own family.”
Last week five students I know, all athletes or former athletes, were involved in a gun incident that involved actual shooting from a moving vehicle and shooting at a stationary vehicle.
The broader community has weighed in like a Jenny Craig encounter group using actual names and saying things like ‘where are the parents, what about the coaches and teachers”—did I mention dropping actual names?
Tens of thousands of innocent extended family members have had the experience of waking up one morning to a story that someone in their kinship matrix has been arrested for violating a cultural taboo or law. Families pull the protection circle in tightly because the community big guns will begin to fire like a pneumatic rifle that shoots ping-pong balls. What about offering help and support? Just a wild thought but the judicial system will kick into gear and teach many valuable lessons many of which will result in a temporary loss of freedoms and a permanent loss of opportunities.