7-Year-Old Boy Handcuffed for 10 Hours Over $5, Mom Sues for $250M
Wilson Reyes
One Bronx police officer made the poor decision to handcuff a seven-year-old child in a dispute over $5, according to the child’s family. Officers hauled a terrified Reyes out of class, handcuffed him like a hardened criminal, and “interrogated” him for 10 hours.
Reyes’ mother, Frances Mendez, snapped the chilling photo (left) of the boy with her cell phone. “Imagine how I felt seeing my son in handcuffs!’’ she said. “It was horrible. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.” Mendez said she is now terrified of the police as well. “My son was crying, ‘Mommy, it wasn’t me! Mommy, it wasn’t me!’ I never imagined the cops could do that to a child. We’re traumatized.” The dispute occurred when $5 fell in front of Reyes and two other boys, and Reyes was accused of picking it up. Reyes scuffled with a classmate for falsely accusing him and that’s when officers charged at him over the incident.
Mendez has slapped NYPD and NYC with a $250 million claim. “Reyes was handcuffed and verbally, physically and emotionally abused, intimidated, humiliated, embarrassed and defamed,” the documents say. He was then charged with robbery. The legal papers say another classmate later admitted the theft. The city’s Law Department dropped the robbery charge against Reyes on Dec. 26. Inspector Kim Royster said yesterday the story was “grossly untrue in many respects, including fabrication as to how long the child was held in the precinct which was less than half of the time mentioned.”
In 2011, dozens of four- and five-year-old students were suspended. The data shows that minorities and kids with special needs were more often the targets of discipline. Black kids served 53% of the suspensions while they represent just 28% of the city’s students. In total, 69% of suspensions went to boys, though they make up 51% of the student populations.In addition, students with disabilities make up just 12% of the student population but serve 32% of the suspensions.
Should NYC and NYPD pay for arresting Reyes?
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Racist acts against “brown” and “black” children have escalated from teachers and police.
AMERICA……RACISM….WHAT ELSE IS NEW?
Maybe if your culture didn’t glamorize gangsters and violence in their music, your kids wouldn’t be getting such a large percentage of disciplinary actions. Did you ever think of THAT? You get some nimrod with gold teeth rapping about killing cops and raping women, robbing people and not working, and hail him as a hero. Consider the example you are setting with who you idolize.
What you say is not wrong, but is it right that this child should have been treated like this?
Kerri, you are an ignorant and dumb minority, the fact this has happened to a 7yr old and your quick judgement beats me, instead your so quick to blame the black cultures music, never mind about the trauma this poor child has been put through. Its not only black culture that glamourises violence etc, violence is on the TV on computer games etc every day i wonder who glamourises that and whose kids go out to renact crimes after watching a violent movie etc.. This should never happen to a little child fullstop, i wonder if you would be so judgemental if the tables were turned and it were your child/member of your family or friends child this happened to whose culture would you be quick to blame then. Would you blame it on the fact that white children are brought up with no manners, respect or self discipline who runs around the street terrorising innocent people and the elderly especially when they’ve had a drink or two. Hmmmm. Whether your black, white, pink or purple this should never happen to no child.
This has nothing to do with a “particular” culture. This is an injustice that have been committed by the police department. If this was a white child do you think they would have handcuffed the child? No! They would have called the parents, if that, and settled the issue in the school. And to add insult to injury, he did not take the five dollars. If this had happened to your child you would be outraged. Stop blaming things on culture. And if the truth be told, young white man are rapping as much as young black men about the same things. Get it together.
Do you think that a person not doing these things become a victim of what someone else is doing? Why don’t you stop
the idolizing of criminal activity and rappers.
250,000 isn much for what this Child went through. The police should never put cuffs on him in the first place. What does the justice system tell us, innocent until proven guilty. I feel so bad for this young child,the scars that he is left with Are awful. Where will the police be when he starts to get bullied over this.
Whaaaaaaa . . . bunch of cry babies.
Article states: “The data shows that minorities and kids with special needs were more often the targets of discipline.”
Fact: The minorities/special needs kids aren’t “targets,” they actually act up more often. I like the way special needs kids were included with the minorities, so as to make the stats look racist. The special needs kids are labeled as such most often becuase they have mental or behavioural problems, so duh, of course they have more than share of discipline issues. You pick the kids that are already known to have more problems with social interaction, then you ought to expect more discipline issues. Gee gads.
The article says: “Black kids served 53% of the suspensions while they represent just 28% of the city’s students.”
No s**t sherlock. Black kids are FAR more likely to come from homes with no daddy around, and kids with no daddy are generally less behaved that kids with a daddy. (When they get older, these same kids will be the gang bangers that are shooting other black people.) Fix the problems with black men who refuse to be “daddy” and black women who will have s*x with most any black man who gives her a compliment, then the problems with unruly kids will take care of itself.
The article says: “In total, 69% of suspensions went to boys, though they make up 51% of the student populations.”
OK people, for the history of mankind, boys have had more discipline problems than girls. It’s called testosterone. It is what it is. Get over it.
The article says: “In addition, students with disabilities make up just 12% of the student population but serve 32% of the suspensions.”
The definition of disability is the reason for this statistic. ADD and ADHD are considered “disabilities,” and are the most common disability type of children. We aren’t talking about kids in wheelchairs. So of course, kids with “disabilities” are more likely to be sujects of discipline.
Fair enough, but why was this child treated like this?
What does this dumb rant by me112233 have to do with a 7 year old who was handcuffed and falsely accused of theft?
Nothing? Oh thats what I thought…
All the BS about how blacks are more likely to do this and do that is strictly a bunch lies and garbage propped up by ignorant clowns…
the only way to dehumanize groups of people is to try and put forth the idea that certain groups of people are just inherently bad people and therefore there should be no sorrow or guilt when they are mistreated..
dishonest BS is what me112233 brings to us today..
Keep your lies and your rhetoric me112233..
we arent buying it
To: ME112233,
Shut the ffuck up!
Yet another shameful display from the force that claims to be protecting the public citizen.
There seems to be a lot of information missing in this story
First of all keep in mind that ALL races have their issues Kerri! Most of the shootings against kids in school are done by thevwhite race. I can go on to mention more sick crimes that are committed by the white race, but I am not going to go there! The point is who do you think you are to bash us about a 7 year old that was seriously miss treated because of his SKIN color! It makes me sick to my stomach and is crazy to mistreat someone because of the colorof their skin!! The person who does that is the one with the mental health issue!
Make them Bastards Pay! I HATE them low life Bullying Pigs! FTP!!!
I think it is an abomination to make the sweeping indictment of all black children, to say that they are more likely to act up, is really asinine. There is a far more nefarious reason, for those statistics, depopulation and the absolute evisceration of people of color. Now other children see what black kids are subjected to everyday. Their goals is to castigate boys of color. Stop Singing and Start Swinging
You don’t have rights for yourself but you are fighting for hispanic rights. Black kids are getting treated just as bad and actually worse. These people have their own activist. You will always lose as you try to drag these other people along side of you and they never do so for you.
You will never see the stories of our kids abused by police on the websites,media outlets, etc.
Get your own rights first and then maybe you can go and fight for someone else.
At me112233,
1. Be sure that you don’t have a child with a mental disability, because your comments show that you could possess the gene that will produce a child with a disability, especially a mental one.
2. The blacks and minorities learned bad habits from the white man, and passed them down from generation to generation (remember that most black women, as slaves, were raped and humiliated by their white slave masters, who taught them to disrespect their bodies and spirits, this was passed down to their half-white daughters, and so on and so on).
3. There are a large number of non-minorities raised in a single parent home (mother never been married to their fathers).
4. Minorities and children with disabilities are targets of discipline, because of laziness. They are scapegoat for our education system going wrong.
5. It is kind of funny that older generation of minorities, who were taught by minority teachers, know more than the younger minorities, who are taught by non-minority teachers.
I should have been more clear in my post. I was not addressing the fact that this happened to a 7 yr old boy. It shouldn’t have and it’s pretty ridiculous. What I AM addressing is this: “In 2011, dozens of four- and five-year-old students were suspended. The data shows that minorities and kids with special needs were more often the targets of discipline. Black kids served 53% of the suspensions while they represent just 28% of the city’s students. In total, 69% of suspensions went to boys, though they make up 51% of the student populations.” And I stand by my statement of your culture glamorizing crime and rebellion.
I am far from ignorant and dumb, sweetheart. Take one look at my sentence structure, and take a look at the rest of the posts. Your culture is promoting illiteracy, fussing at the teachers disciplining kids that the parents don’t care enough about to discipline, blaming everyone but themselves. The victim mentality has to stop if you ever want to crawl out of the hole you’ve dug yourselves into with your own poor choices. Quit having babies you cannot support. Quit having babies with multiple men. Your men need to quit banging everything that will open an orifice.
Yes ….you are dumb… and sentence structure wouldnt hide your ignorance..
If you know anything about the America’s school systems (especially black children and special ed) you’d know that there is a huge problem of lazy teachers and principals putting minority children into special education programs. Many of the children diagnosed as special needs, do not belong in that environment… but it is easier to put kids in special than to actually deal with them…
I work in a school district and we problems with misplaced students…
the obvious fact of this is that America is full of greed and racism on alot of levels.
I know people like you want to rush in and try to qualify facts with your personal BS, but it isnt quite that easy…
You need to go back to the drawing board and come up with some new excuses
Kerri-your ability to utilize “good sentence structure” means absolutely nothing when you exhibit poor judgement in this matter. Even if the statistics you use are correct (and I don’t believe they are) the child was treated unfairly. If this was done to a white child-it would be unfair. Wrong is wrong.
Perhaps the U.S. should pull out of Chicago?
Body count: In the last 12 months 500 killed (murdered) in Chicago.
221 killed in Iraq AND Chicago has one of the strictest gun laws in the entire US.
President: Barack Hussein Obama
Senator: d**k Durbin
House Representative: Jesse Jackson Jr.
Governor: Pat Quinn
House leader: Mike Madigan
Atty. Gen.: Lisa Madigan (daughter of Mike)
Mayor: Rahm Emanuel
The leadership in Illinois – all Democrats.
Thank you for the combat zone in Chicago .
Of course, they’re all blaming each other.
Can’t blame Republicans; there aren’t any!
Chicago school system rated one of the worst in the country.
Can’t blame Republicans; there aren’t any!
State pension fund $78 Billion in debt, worst in country.
Can’t blame Republicans; there aren’t any!
Cook County (Chicago ) sales tax 10.25% highest in country.
Can’t blame Republicans; there aren’t any!
This is the political culture that Obama comes from in Illinois.
And he is going to ‘fix’ Washington politics for us???
George Ryan is no longer Governor, he is in prison.
Of course he was replaced by Rob Blajogevitch who is…that’s right, also in prison.
And Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. resigned 11 / 21 / 2012.
That is because he is fighting being sent to… that’s right, prison.
Yes, the child was treated unfairly. I agree with you on that. I used the statistics referred to in the article, I didn’t make them up. You need to quit coming up with excuses. Your culture needs to take responsibility for itself and START making good choices like practicing birth control, raising children with both parents, turning off your vulgar music, putting enough clothes on your little girls so that the don’t look like little hookers at 6 years old, tell your boys to pull their dang pants up, study in school, help the teachers you’ve put in place to just babysit your children, and feed your children a diet of something other than c**p. And don’t start in on how you can’t afford better food. A can of beans is cheap and it makes two meals. That’s what I eat…beans, rice, and vegetables. I drink water, not kool-aid. Quit glamorizing gang activity.
our culture?
You sound like a bigot Kerri…. plain and simple..
Our culture is AMERICAN culture… You think this stuff happens in a vacuum?
Look American culture as a whole and look and then look at black culture… We are just branches of the poisoned root.
Newtown Massacre? Columbine? A full decade of unnecessary wars?
This is a violent racist (as displayed by you) society, and we are a part of it…
You can point the finger, but your failure to look around and see what is going on? shows you are not smart or insightful….just a dumb bigot…
Like I said earlier… You sound dumb.. smarten up and think about what you are actually saying next time
The story says, ” The dispute occurred when $5 fell in front of Reyes and two boys.” If it fell in front of him,how can he be chared with robbery.?
Thank God some Mothers of color has the sense to sue, since black kindergarden babies are handcuffed, put in police cars and hauled off to jail every day, and none of them have the common sense to do so.
Kerri, the dems took over the mess left by the Repubs. Come up with something. Your ranting is just that ranting with no substance.
I am a black man and I have 6 brothers and five sisters all the same mother and father, all married all the children are the same. I have 6 children with one wife. This ignorant and archaic way of thinking is indicative of a white supremacist attitude. There are a lot of black men that take care of their children and families and just fyi the greatest welfare state is Utah which is 93 percent WHITE. White people are not the moral barometer to which people should gauge to live their lives. White people will never admit that they are complicit in our social conundrum. They are complicit in the proliferation of drugs in our communities and if the article was read correctly, the little boy was hispanic , so how does our culture relate to this. Therefore the syllogism is faulty
I cannot believe this!!! They had no right to handcuff a 7-year old child and if it was just half the time, it would have been 5 hours and to put it in propective, the child was NOT guilty! Who are these clowns that work for NYPD? They should be fired! The mother should sue them for every d**n penny she can get out of the NYPD! It is not weather the child was Black or Spanish, they love it when we turn on each other, all minorities in this country are treated unfairly and it is time we stop downing each other and come together. Yes, both cultures need to do something about having babies they can’t afford and help get rid of the gangs in your communities but the Whites need to get rid of their hillybilly gangs too and their meth making, no teeth mothers who are having babies and allowing them to drink drano and die, come on down to KY, I can show you a lot of White welfare, too many children to feed mothers! This BS is across the boad Kerri, where the h**l have you been. Oh, but Whites see what they want to see don’t they? They see everyone else’s wrong doings but their own such as the dumb a*s mother that taught a mentally ill son how to use an assault rifle and he in turn took her out as well as 26 others!!! Where was the rich father, he should have been watching after his son for his ex was not!
Judge, jury and executioner . . .ALL BY COP! They seem to always push beyond the limits. A high school grad–at least– playing psychological expert in thinking they could ‘ bluff’ this child into a confession. Well, instead of arrest and transport to a ‘kiddie jail’ this police officer went way above his pay grade and now this is a lottery ticket-type settlement for the city.
The dems have been in control of Chicago for a long time and things have gotten WORSE, not better, under democratic control. The Jews, despite suffering the most brutal history of any race, build hospitals and libraries. They have the largest percentage of Nobel Prize winners. They were almost slaughtered out of existence, yet they move forward. You might consider that option.
The Mother need to sue the Police Department 10 Billion Dollars. A billion for every hour they had her son hand cuffed. Then go back and sue the school 5 Billion for not protecting her son. ” WHEN YOU STAND FOR NOTHING, YOU WILL FALL FOR ANYTHING! “
It is against the law to question a minor without a parent present, and this was a young child. Saying that the child was handcuffed “half the time (five hours)” is still illegal. Poorly trained police are quick to arrest minorities, be they adults or minors. Until police are better trained, the city should look to spend a great deal of money on lawsuits that they will lose.
Just another attempt to label our young black boys as problem kids. This happens all over America. Parents protect your kids get involved in their schools.don’t just send them you show up unannounced. As well. (I say Sue the police and the school district) .
Kerri: 9:50 a. m.
I will address this to you because you are forgetting this is about a 7 year old child that was taken away from his known environment and surroundings to a strange environment/surroundings without his parent or parents with him and then hancuffed to a desk or whatever he was handcuffed to. Can you imagine seeing you child or grandchild like that? Stay with the issue at hand instead of talking about statistics, race, dressing etc. Whether you like it or not there are bad in all races, therfore; only a person that’s not informed would assume or talk about just one race or one ethinic background. You are totally missing the point and if you are so sure you want to talk aout race then do your home work on all races before you start talking. Just Saying!
Do your research folks. I do understand that he is a cute little boy, but he has been in trouble before at school for bullying, fighting, and stealing. This was not the first time the school has had to discipline the little boy. I also understand that the mother is upset, but let us look at why he is acting out like this at school. I want mom to not just point fingers at the school and police if she knows that her son has and still is getting in trouble at school. He is waaaay too young to start out like that. I think if kids get “scared straight” at a young age (elementary, because they are locking up teens in prison on a regular basis now) they will realize that school IS the place to be!
@Kerri…..well folks this person is right to a degree. She is using this one incident true enough but there is a lot of truth to what she is saying. The child may have been innocent of this incident, my question is what is the backround of the student. Has this child been raising h**l(giving teachers a reason to believe he may have been guilty because of his past). I am a Black man. I grew up with my father and I’m raising my son and daughter and I can tell you this. All this bs about a woman can raise children alone…no…they shouldn’t have to and many of them fail because a man is needed. I know some black teachers that confide in me how bad some of these kids are. Everybody keeps coming up with an excuse for the child raising h**l rather than putting a belt to his @$$. Everyone wants to negotiate with children…wtf. I wish my child would try to negotiate and I’m not giving him/her medicine to calm down. That is just playing into the white man’s hands. They just start making money on your little bad demon early with doctors and all. Then when they hit 18 or so, the penal system takes over. You don’t see anyone then interested in giving out meds to get them under control. They use the same force you could have at home when they were younger to get them under control. I have a teacher that texts me almost everyday the horror stories of black children that are running around in the class room kicking teachers, throwing tantrums and being abusive to other kids. All they need is a good ole fashion @$$ whipping. So was it wrong to cuff the kid? I say that depends on the kid’s backround. If he has a history of violence they should have put him out of school a long time ago. That’s what I advocate. Put up a real no tolerance policy and apply it across the board. You start putting kids out lf school you will see a lot of parents getting themselves together. Many parents use the school as daycare. The white kids are just as bad in my opinion. The thing though is this. We can’t be concerned with what everyone else is doing. We need to start controlling our children before the police are called in. Then we wouldn’t hear as much about kids being cuffed. So I’ll hold out on judgement of the cops until I can get some proof of the kid’s backround because I’m actually for them cuffing some of these bad a*s kids and taking them off whether they be 7 or 17. I’m tired of excuses as why we should allow kids to run amuck and act a d**n fool and then blame the system for things we can do for ourselves. We shouldn’t need police to come in and cuff 7 year olds. Now if the police come in and start cuffing adults for beating 7 year old’s a***s we got a problem but I don’t hear that. I only hear of cops cuffing 7 year olds whom mostly don’t have fathers. So we can talk about Kerri but she is speaking some truth. Her folks have their own problems…killing each other over insurance policies…opening up fire on crowds in a theatre because of some random ignorant stuff, but right now in here we are talking about bad a*s kids. We need to discuss how we handle that. She has to still deal with her own people’s issues…and believe me they have their own.
IKA, what happened to this child is WRONG on every level. I’m not condoning it in the least possible way. What I AM saying is that, if you want to point out that Black youth are subjected to more disciplinary measures at school out of ratio to their population, you might consider looking at the cause behind the discipline problems as opposed to just screaming “racism.” There are problem children in EVERY race, but the Black culture idolizes and embraces “gangsta” rap and the mentality that goes along with it. It appears that this mentality is bleeding over into the Hispanic/Mexican youth as well. Why else would your young men be walking around attempting to appear intimidating instead of respectful? The problem is NOT that all of the teachers are racist because that simply cannot be the case, there are Black and Hispanic teachers referring out-of-control Black youth for behavior issues. What mentality is the child coming to school with? Are you teaching them to rebel against authority? My mother told me on the first day of school every year, “If you get into trouble at school, you’ll get it twice as bad when you get home.” They backed up the teachers. Not so with your culture and I have many friends of all races who teach. The teachers send notes home to the parents via snail mail AND email, make repeated phone calls, plead with the parents to pay attention to their kids, and this contact goes unanswered. Repeatedly. You blame the teachers but the teachers aren’t responsible for what you pump into your kids’ heads or allow them to listen to, watch on TV, or read. Garbage in. Garbage out. It’s a symptom. Do something about YOUR children. Make YOUR children behave. Make them READ. Make them do their homework and treat the teachers with respect. Quit blaming society for s******g up a kid YOU produced with a dad who isn’t present. Maybe many dads for multiple children.
@ thatswhy— see this is the kind of thing we need to lay out on the table. The mother is quick now to want to draw national attention and sue but where was this enthusiasm the first 4 or 5 times her child got into trouble. My mother use to give us the “Black speech” before school started…which was…”if I have to get off my job…etc”. You know black mothers and fathers didn’t have any salaried jobs like they do today. She would say all of that but then it was my father that was kicking @$$ because we just costed them income. I can promise you that I never got into trouble for anything I did in school because I was more afraid of what my father would do than I was of being handcuffed by cops. He was/is a loving father. He just didn’t put up with bs. I’m the same way with my son and daughter. I use to give the teacher a business card in front of them the first day of school and I’d tell the teacher in front of them. If you so much as say go left and they go right….call me…and I promise I would have come to the school and beat their a*s right there in the school. If parents would do that, we wouldn’t have to read this nonsense. We wouldn’t be discussing kids in cuffs because they would be afraid of the parents. So stop feeling sorry for bad a*s kids. They are tearing our schools apart and we are rallying around them at the wrong time.
@Bernard..thank you…The white culture throws their kids in a car, hauls them to the doctor, gets a prescription, and poisons their own kids with mind-altering substances that make these kids snap and commit mass murders. We have a problem, a really bad one….and I don’t think it’s OK to drug children just because a parent is too lazy to discipline and train the child. We feed them fast food laden with chemicals and park their little butts in front of TV…then wonder why they walk into a school with 1000 bullets and kill everyone. Everyone is so politically correct and what good is it doing? If they can’t behave in school then they don’t need to be in school. Take them into the cafeteria and teach them how to fill out a job application and sweep floors because that’s the best you can hope for no matter what color your kid is. White parents are just as bad about making excuses but they aren’t doing their kids any favors. Quit promoting violence and rebellion. Start spending time with your kids and teach them to respect authorities and school personnel. Sit down with them and do their homework with them, read to them at night instead of giving them an Ipod with the latest hip hop music. Care about the child you produced.
$250 million? You people are retards… You know where that money comes from right? Fire the cop, give them $250,000 and a trip to Disneyland.
I am truly upset over this a 7 year old,! Now they really gone too far.$5 isn’t enough to even arrest an adult for but the law enforcement choose to pick with a kid instead of them goin thruthe school system and letting them handle it no they want to try and scare a poor child and try to make an example out of them which is wrong. They need to stop and think about what they doin before they do it. Did that police officer think about what he did to his kid,see things like that is what I be looking at and they r the ones who is supose to be protecting us when we’re in trouble how can we look to them for help when they are doin worst thngs than criminal’s are.
Whoa now. Let’s not jump all over Kerrie. He/She speaks the truth.
@corbin56…I’m a she and I raised four of my own kids, and four others as well. I would have rather never laid a hand on my kids or raised my voice to them, but I wasn’t going to tolerate them being disrespectful to other people or to teachers, even if the teachers were wrong. And sometimes their teachers were wrong but we discussed it. I read to them every night and I did their homework with them every day. I bought clothes from thrift stores and drove all of my vehicles until they had over 200,000 miles on them. I coupon shopped, I cleaned houses, and I babysat to make money. It was a hand-to-mouth existence for all of their growing up years until my (now-ex) husband inherited some money. The two youngest then entered a life of indulgence and no responsibilities. It was not good for them. The youngest one ended up getting arrested for minor in possession and the legal fees were high. Now he’s woken up, but it hasn’t been a fun road. My oldest son is a lawyer (public defender) and the other three are in college now. I actually pulled them out of public school when my oldest was in 6th grade and #2 in 3rd because of the discipline problems at school. I home-schooled all four of them after that because the days of the oldest one were spent tutoring other children rather than learning. The oldest three had jobs and chores. I taught my kids to value other people, to value education, and to help people who need help. My oldest daughter managed a Goodwill store, my younger daughter uses a therapy dog to visit people in nursing homes, and the youngest one donates his time teaching music lessons to underprivileged kids. My kids grew up poor but I was involved in their lives, I knew their friends, and I didn’t tolerate any BS. I also donate time to the local community in many ways and I don’t care what race someone is who comes to me for help. My kids are not racist either, both of my sons had Black girlfriends (one who lived with us for a while). We’d be stupid to ignore cultural differences, but the Black culture promotes attitudes that are anti-society, anti-family, and anti-responsibility. Your children cannot thrive in a world when they seek to defy cooperation. We should be working together, not pointing fingers.
sorry kerrie but i work in the medical field and i’ve seen alot in twenty yrs .most of those kids are born to white women but are bi racial so lets not place the blame but find a solution to this bad mama no daddy drama and maybe the police should find time to make this a better world for the next generation by removing drugs off the streets and hookers
@ sherry Kerri is right and that’s coming from a Black man. Many of us(not all) want to be seen. We want fast money…we want to ride in nice cars and buy cloths that cost us too much. I know white folks that have money but shop in thrift stores for the same stuff we are paying top dollar for. I’m 44 and grew up around mostly black folks in a descent area. There were no killings and what not taking place, but my father didn’t put up with any nonsense. Now out of the 4 of us(3 boys and a girl) Me and my sister are the only ones that obtained degrees but we were all given the same choices in life. My oldest brother spends his time now behind my back telling everyone how my father loved me more…yada yada…but the bottom line is this. I had to make the decision to go mow lawns to pay for college(I wasn’t the brightest and received very little aid). I had to motivate myself to get up and go to class. I said all that to say this. We all make decisions. Do Blacks have it harder? Sure we do, but we know that going in. So we have to stop using that as an excuse to sit around and complain about the white man. The white man doesn’t force you to do anything. You have choices in life. I tell my son that almost everyday. I tell my daughter that if you choose the wrong clown to lay around with, you will be raising kids alone. I’ve raised mine, I’m not doing another round. If you make your kids think you will always be there…then you will always have to be there. I won’t always be there. My father is still living but h**l he can help me if I needed it but he can’t and shouldn’t have to take care of me…my wife and my son(16) and daughter(18 in april). So as hard as it is to listen to it…What Kerri is saying is right. We will come to this woman’s aide about this with the cuffs on a 7 year old child but where was all this energy when the child was messing up in school all this time? Black folks are too emotional about stuff that we don’t need to be. I’m tired of seeing bad @$$ kids in the stores going off on their parents. I wished a law would be passed where I could just s****h them up and beat their @$$ for the mother. We got away from that. We try to be cool with the child rather than raising them. Much of that is because kids are getting caught with kids to raise. No one is perfect. I ran women for a while when I got out of highschool, but I knew I didn’t want to be broke. I knucled down did what I had to do to get out of college and understand this. If I could do it…anyone can. I graduated something like 157 out of 300 students in my class. Everyone is not an A student but h**l…C is passing.
My youngest brother was a member of the honor society in highschool…straight A student but he as well as many others didn’t have the discipline it took to get out of college. I didn’t either to start with. For the first year I spent time in the back of my school fishing rather than going to class. I then realized no teacher gave a d**n. They were still getting their checks. I was only hurting myself. So in a nutshell that’s all Kerri is basically saying. We have to be motivated to do something other than go get our hair and nails done so we can be seen at the club. Our women need to choose mates better. Stop looking for someone who fits what everyone else wants. Stop laying around with me because you are impressed with the wrong things….his car and because some other woman wants to screw him and things of that nature. I can tell you as a man….if he has the option…more times than not he’s going to screw you both and looking around for a third if he thinks that way. Look for men that have potential not men that have everything. Men that have everything aren’t looking for your broke @$$. They are looking for women that have everything. No man that has worked to to put himself through school wants to waste his time with a woman who has been laying around and having kids with different men. Real men want their own children. If one person at a time we change the way we think, we will change our community. It’s hard but it can be done. If MLK and others can help convince a wicked government, surely you as an individual can change your own mindset.
bernard…. those arent just black people problems… those are PEOPLE problems…
black folks need to step back and have some perspective… The emotions and situations you describe are not exclusive to black folks.. White folks, Asians, people in other countries and societies have many of the same issues..
Its called LIFE bruh…
*SMH*
Standard school protocol should have been followed. The parents should hve been called. It should have been handled in-house. Restitution should have been a point!
This is happening more than what is put in print. It is wrong and happening more to Hispanics and Blacks.
Make them pay for their wrong
Rahsheed,
Really, Why are we the ones making up something like 70 percent of the jail system? I feel what you are saying bro but everyone else seems to be pulling themselves out of it to some degree…except us. How many Asians do you see living in poverty in this country? How do people come over here with nothing and end up with the world at it’s feet. We are here and seem like as a community we are having a pretty hard time. Someone has to say it. Look at the amount of comments of people jumping on this mother’s side. Everyone thinks it’s so horrible. I say we need the whole story. It sounds harsh on the surface but I have a zero tolerance for bad children bro. I look around and we just seem to want everything right now. Money, Cars, Respect. All of that stuff is earned over time. You are owed nothing in this world. So sitting around complaining won’t do anything. I say fix the problems you can fix internally first and then we can deal with white folks. No white man is putting a gun to any sister’s head or the brothers head and saying you go out and have kids out of wedlock. You go and sell crack. That is a choice we make. I understand what you are saying but all those issues seem to be magnified with us and it isn’t by chance and it isn’t all on racism. I just want people to step back and take a look around them. How many people do you know riding around in Beamers and other high priced cars but live in 38,000 dollar houses. It’s our mentality that is killing us not the white man.
Bernard, you remind me very much of a Black man I worked for when I was in my twenties. He was in his 60s at the time, ran a guard dog business, had been raised in Houston, TX pre-civil rights era, and couldn’t read or write because he had to quit school in the third grade to pick cotton and help support his family. He was a good and honest man, a hard working man. He raised his own kids and put them all through school. They never took a public dime. He worked 7 days a week running guard dogs at businesses like construction sites and rental car lots. He’d turn teams of dogs loose at night to protect the property, and then pick them up in the morning before the owners arrived back. His wife was very intelligent and ran the books for his business and their family. She loved to sit and do crossword puzzles, cook, etc. Great lady. They didn’t take ANY c**p from their kids and he was a well-respected businessman. Unless you really knew him like I did, you didn’t realize that he couldn’t read or write. But the way he conducted himself garnered respect. I was an agitator (the dummy in the bite suit getting attacked by the dogs). We’d go from business to business in his little truck working the dogs at the fence line and inside the property making sure they’d bite someone if the need arose. In all the years he had his business he only had one idiot break into a job site, and the dogs kept the guy on top of the car until the cops arrived. I say all that to say this: He made something out of nothing with determination and hard work. He had self-respect, he had community respect, and his family respected him. Yes, it was funny to see a white girl running around with a big Black man in those days (80s), but he was a good man and I am honored to have known him. He taught his kids to be self-sufficient. His word was law in the house, there was no debating with or reasoning with kids. People need to own up to their responsibilities and your women will not be respected by their children OR their men if they lay down with everyone. Men, teach your daughters to respect themselves by showing respect to their mother. Teach your sons to respect their mothers and to treat people right. Insist that they do their school work and that they go to school to LEARN, not socialize. Make them accountable for their grades. We owe our children that, at the very least. The alternative is the penal system.
Hey, arrant nonsense. 7yrs old child, God! Who would be happy? Completely inhuman and abuse of power. No excuses please, can you call spade a spade.
Kerri,
That’s right. That is the way it’s got to be. When one keeps doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, that is a fool. You can’t have a family 3 generations in and all of them live in the projects or on some type of assistance and then point to the white man. They have a million welfare to work programs. You have to willing to start from nowhere. A quick story as to how I even started cutting lawns. My father my sophmore year would not give me 3 dollars to go to a football game(Biggest rivalry game of the year and the first game). It was my first highschool game. I missed it. He told me by next Friday I would figure out a way to make 3 bucks. I thought that was the meanest thing in the world at the time. I then turned to my Uncle who had a lawn service. He gave me 4 bucks an hour(minimum wage was 3.35 at the time). I thought that was great until we got done. He pulled out what must have been 275 or 300 bucks and gave me 32. I then went in the house and told my father I needed my own mower. I found myself making 125 or 130 bucks every saturday and I couldn’t even drive(15 years old). Here I am at age 44 with two college degrees…both paid for with lawn money as I would rather go cut the yards then fill out the paper work for money….as it was too tedious for me. I’m still cutting grass and it is now helping my son and daughter with responsibility. I will tell you that I am a Democrat. I’m not naive to racism and the inequalities that go on but this is not the 60′s and while having a president isn’t everything, it does show that attitudes have changed. We as a people have to change our mentality. We have to stop being emotional about everything that happens to a black person. Some people put themselves in that position. Things such as what happened to Treyvon need to be dealt with. That guy needs to hang for what he did, but this with this child, lets look into it deeper before we judge. I hear the horror stories from Black teachers. Some of these kids need to be cuffed and futhermore thrown completely out of the school system if the parents aren’t going to get them under control. A teacher can’t teach 20 other kids with one running around and acting a fool all day. So this is war save 20 or so other kids. Watch Lean On Me. Schools are really like that and some times you have to go to the levels that Joe Clark did. It isn’t popular but it works. He threw some 300 kids out of the school to save a lot more that could still be taught. I think they need to implement that like yesterday and stop giving every kid that acts out drugs. Beat their @ss. Yea….I said it. It works. I haven’t had one problem out mine and they are 17 and 16. I established early in life I was hearing and putting up with none of it. So I say if kids are going to constantly clown and act a fool…cuff them all..until you get their parents attention.