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0 pointseldude10y ago0 comments

> In short, Ahmed was arrested for making while brown.

This sort of demagoguery masquerading as journalism has got to stop. Upvoting exploitative personal political propaganda like this contributes to an atmosphere of narrow-mindedness on HN that plays to the bigotry of its readers, with the majority of comments here responding in like.

I'm certainly not defending it, but in reality this sort of (over) reaction, is perfectly explainable when you consider the risk of government employees responsible for the lives of children NOT reacting and being wrong.

Yes, those involved need some education, but no more so than the author regarding journalistic ethics, or the commenters here stirring up a witch-hunt. You can see all the anti-Texan/Conservative/School/Government-ists overreacting here right on cue.

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mikeash10y ago· 1 in thread

You're right that the reaction is explainable by pervasive CYA and the risk of not reacting and being wrong.

However, you're missing that pervasive and institutional racism is a big part of that risk.

Imagine a kid brings an actual bomb to school, the authorities don't react, and he detonates it. Then what?

The kid's race is going to play a huge role in how that decision is analyzed afterwards. If the kid was white then the discussion is likely to be of the form, "We need better mental health treatment to catch this stuff early!" If the kid was the wrong shade of brown then it's going to be, "He was obviously a terrorist and the administration should be thrown in a hole for not taking appropriate measures."

eldudeOP10y ago

I'm not ignoring institutional racism, merely not assuming it, which is consistent with the American justice system tenet of never presuming guilt, even when you really want to and everyone around says you should.

You're making a lot of wild assertions that really are tangential and not intellectually consistent with my original point that there are no facts specific to this case to support the author's narrative, merely the assumptions and presumptions you espouse.

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