By Shaheen Pasha and Divine Lipscomb
The recent altercation between two students at State College Area High School has raised concerns about the impact of racism and the threat of physical violence on campus throughout the community.
But the manner in which authorities handled the situation between the two high school boys should be a larger issue for State College residents, reflecting the ingrained biases that law enforcement and prosecutors have towards Black and brown youth.
On Feb. 1, a white student and a Black student were involved in a fight that stemmed from a circulated photograph depicting racist, anti-Black and anti-Semitic language and symbols. While the photograph was purported to have been taken months earlier, the issue of racism against minority students has been a long standing issue in the community.
Residents of color have long felt the sting of otherness in State College, despite the presence of progressive lawn signs and verbal support for the BLM movement. The violent altercation between these two boys is a spotlight on the racial divisiveness plaguing this community.
Both of us are parents and we don’t believe that violence is the answer, especially among our children. In this case, however, violence was committed against both students. Yet only one of these boys stands to lose his future to the extremely broken criminal justice system. The District Attorney’s decision to file a juvenile petition for a felony and two misdemeanors against the 16-year-old Black student, who had been dealing with the emotional and mental violence of racism at school for months, is a clear indication that one of these lives matters more.
It is also clear that the criminalization of Black and brown children that is so prevalent across the United States is very much a part of the criminal justice system here in Centre County.
Society is conditioned not to see Black youth as what they are: children. From plantations to presidents, Black youth have labels to justify their treatment. White supremacy comes in many forms in this country and its proximity to law and order can be seen in the numbers.
One in every three Black males will face incarceration in their lifetime, according to data from The Sentencing Project. Compare that to 1 in 17 white men of the same age. And when it comes to felonies like assault, those same Black males under the age of 18 are more likely to be charged as adults and reported to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) system.
As individuals who have been directly impacted by incarceration, having either been imprisoned or having a loved one behind bars, and who now work with the incarcerated population, we can attest that our judicial system is no place for a child.
Whether it’s a youth detention center or an adult prison, children are not safe in these facilities. According to the Survey of Youth in Residential Placement, more children in detention and corrections programs reported that they were sexually victimized, put in solitary confinement, strip searched, held in restraints, lived in fear of physical attack and suffered from unnecessary use of force.
These same young people also reported having far fewer educational opportunities and services inside these facilities, putting them at a disadvantage from their peers on the outside upon release. Tack on the trauma of being locked up at a young age in a system that prioritizes control and punishment over any kind of rehabilitation, and society is practically ensuring that the child will return to prison.
This is the brutal cycle of mass incarceration that impacts children who are criminalized. And, as always, the racial disparities in the criminal justice system means that Black children, in particular, are forced on this path from a young age. Forty-one percent of youths in detention are Black, even though Black Americans only comprise about 15% of all young people in the United States, according to The Sentencing Project.
The D.A.’s decision to file a juvenile petition against this Black State College student is just another example of how institutional racism in our society continues to operate. But it will do nothing to address the core issue plaguing this school and town, which resulted in this terrible fight in the first place.
Black people in this country face the highest single-bias offenses for hate crimes, according to the FBI’s 2019 UCR report. Sexual orientation and religious hate come in right behind. What we are seeing with the racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric at State College High School is that this plague of hate is corrupting the youngest and most vulnerable members of our community.
Arresting a Black teen is not going to make that go away. There is no lesson, no restorative healing for the community in such an action.
What needs to be addressed is the political and cultural divide that we are experiencing in our community. This is not a Republican or Democrat issue. This is not a matter of what books are being read and which ones are not. This is a matter of our children’s safety and well-being.
And these children have been socialized into their community and are direct products of those environments. While both children made decisions that cannot be solely the responsibility of the adults around them, those adults must not be excluded from this equation. The adults that interact with these children came up short. People willingly or unconsciously disregarded the tension in the school as it began to build. And when the situation finally exploded that morning at school, there were no adults present in the hallway to step in.
It is clear that the adults failed our children in this situation. For that, it’s the adults who must reckon with the fallout and work to do better.
There is room here for an alternative course, one that does not involve having the justice system come in and divide our already divided community further. Firstly, there should be equity in the consequences both Black and white students face for committing violence against each other. And make no mistake: racism is violence, one that shatters a child’s soul long after the words are uttered or the pictures are deleted. As a community, we must recognize and accept that fundamental truth.
There should also be a move toward restorative practices in the school and the community to address the underlying harm that racism and violence causes. State College Area High School has privilege. It is not plagued with lack of funding and students do not face the daily humiliation of entering their school under the watchful eyes of school safety, police officers and metal detectors. In essence, it’s a far cry from the school experience we had growing up in the New York City public school system. So when children make bad decisions, we need to examine why. We need to come together as a community to figure out how to make the school a safer place for all of our children.
The D.A.’s office has no place in this equation. These children should not be made to feel like they are inherently enemies due to their racial, ethnic or religious affiliations. Community members have the knowledge and skills to help us bridge the gap that keeps us segregated. We need to find the courage and will to want to make that change.
Shaheen Pasha is an assistant professor of journalism at Penn State University and the cofounder of Prison Journalism Project
Divine Lipscomb is an adult learner at Penn State University, studying Rehabilitation and Human Services.
