Parkland Shooting: The Search for a Whiteness Stigma

Two weeks after a mentally ill Nikolas Cruz killed 17 classmates and teachers, numerous efforts have been made by those in the media and in the education system to assert claims that the issue of “whiteness” somehow attaches to this tragic event.

Within hours after the shootings, several media sources — in a rush to be first to publish the story without first verifying accuracy with law enforcement — claimed Cruz was a member of the white supremacist hate group “Republic of Florida.”

Unsurprisingly, that claim was totally wrong. It was quickly dismissed by authorities who indicated they found no evidence to support the allegation. Further investigation by the media would have revealed the supremacist hate group meme was also not supported by the racial makeup of those students and faculty members who were killed.

With the white supremacist hate group angle no longer viable, some members of the media tried another approach to argue there was still a “whiteness” issue attached to the shootings. Thus, MSNBC analyst Nicolle Wallace jumped into the discussion with both feet, claiming the only reason the Florida high school shooting was getting so much publicity was because several of those shot and killed were white.

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Diane Wolk-Rogers [a Parkland educator] told CNN that President Donald Trump’s suggestion teachers be armed “horrifies” her. {snip}

Wolk-Rogers added she wanted to “talk about the white elephant in the room. Because what we know is that students of color get suspended and get expelled at a higher rate than white kids. So, now, what are we going to say, Mr. Trump? We’re going to say that now students of color are going to be shot at by teachers at a higher rate? It’s absolutely ludicrous. It horrifies me.”

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{snip} The term “mass shooting” is applied to incidents in which four or more people are killed by a shooter. The percentage of such mass killings by both black and white assailants is fairly closely represented by the percentage of both population bases.

{snip} Harvard graduate and lawyer Elie Mystal, who writes a legal blog, makes the claim arming teachers will lead to black students being murdered as teachers are inherently racially prejudiced.

Even if such an outlandish statement were true, Mystal too seeks to deny innocent student victims protection for something for which they are not responsible — alleged teacher prejudices. If such racial prejudice exists among teachers, who again is responsible for allowing it? And, because the issue was not addressed before teachers accepted their teaching responsibilities, are we to deny their students protection?

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But the story all the race-baiters fail to report is the role the NAACP actually played in the high death count Cruz tallied. The reason the four police officers held back, failing immediately to neutralize an active shooter in the school, was due to law enforcement’s adoption of the NAACP’s ill-advised, social-justice “PROMISE” program — a product of then-President Barack Obama’s politically motivated, race-based safer school policy. The policy sought to statistically demonstrate safer schools existed simply by police ignoring crimes committed by students, thus resulting in reports of reduced arrests. One would have thought an active-shooter scenario would have overridden such a policy. It did not; ironically, white students died due to an NAACP policy encouraging police to ignore criminal acts.

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