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Violence - Is It Sometimes Acceptable?
My mother is having a really big and important dilemma, and it inspired me to start this thread, because it's a fairly interesting issue.
She is a schoolteacher. During one of her classes with 7th graders, a girl started to tease a guy who happens to be a Gypsy with horrible racist insults - how he stinks, how his entire family is the scum of the Earth, how they should go back to India and not mix with "civilized people" anymore etc. He promptly stood up and smacked her in the face with all of his strength. Now, the guy is huge for his age and really damn strong - when he hit her, she literally tumbled across to the other side of the classroom, bleeding - he broke her nose.
Just after that, my mother was told by other students that the girl had constantly been insulting him for already a year, and that he's usally kindhearted and would never do such a thing to someone unless they really had it coming.
This caused quite an argument among the teachers on what to do. My mother is very conflicted and says that, even though she sympathizes with the boy and understands his motivations, she thinks that he didn't have the right to hit her as hard as he did and that not punishing him could create a big shitstorm with her parents, who are quite rich and influential, which could get the school in trouble. Also, since this is a very multiethnic neighborhood, it's entirely possible to cause a big ethnic-based brawl, which aren't an uncommon occurence in the neighborhood.
What do you think, what would be the proper course of action?
Comments
Discipline both students, but discipline the boy relatively mildly.
Ideally, the boy should have aborted the verbal abuse and perhaps then it might have been dealt with. That might have ended it all without violence, although I honestly have limited sympathy for the girl in this scenario. I don't think there's a clearly definable line where violence becomes "okay" in a general sense, but there are lines that can be crossed which make for clear aggressors and defenders in certain cases. One year of racist verbal abuse to a usually docile individual and then you get hammered? Had it coming.
I suppose the big thing is that if you feel you must use violence, it's probably a good idea to announce or imply that in some way, albeit non-threatening. For instance, if you're being harassed by some larrikan on public transport and you're internally preparing yourself for a fight, you always have the option of saying "Please don't come any closer", in which case you have set a legally definable boundary between yourself and the person bothering you (and it's likely to be on camera on public transport, too). This means you can make the first move, because then you get to decide when that boundary is broken (within reason) -- so you simultaneously allow yourself to establish initiative and you get to give a warning.
That might not work in every country, though. For example, in the US (except Florida), you are legally required to withdraw from a fight if it seems reasonably possible to do so.
Given that retreat it generally better than combat, it doesn't make a difference -- you get out unharmed, and that's the point.
Well, what I'm saying is that what you described wouldn't work as a legal defense at all here.
So is this ongoing, like they haven't decided what to do yet? Also, what country do you live in, Milos?
Serbia would be the guess here.
The politics and culture of East European countries have always been strange to me. I wouldn't know what to do, except any racists there to not be dumbasses, but I would do that anywhere in the world.
It would if you had no avenue of retreat -- for instance, being on a moving train.
Yeah, it's Serbia, and it's still ongoing. It just happened today.
Racism against Gypsies is actually very widespread across Europe. It's quite horrible in Serbia, and Serbia still ranks among the better ones when it comes to anti-Roma racism.
I've heard about that. Sad state of affairs, really. Racism against Romanians in general, not today's case.
Gypsies/Roma and Romanians are a completely different thing, actually, although many outsiders aren't aware of that.
It's ironic that Romania is one of the European countries with the highest level of anti-Roma sentiment.
Shit. You see, this is all foreign to me.
An alternative is to give them both a shared detention where they are to talk out the issues. This way, they are both punished, the problem could be resolved between them, and a teacher would have their undivided attention on them both, allowing for mediation before something like this occurs again (during detention, anyways)
If the parents of the girl are the kind to go, "She did nothing wrong don't you dare punish her", then there is the added benefit of, "It's not really even detention. It's teaching her how to talk and negotiate, which are highly valuable life skills"
The roma is what you guys call Gypsies, who come from Asia. Romanians are a latin descendants like spaniards and french.
^ Yep, that is correct. The Gypsies/Roma came from India in the Middle Ages, and Romanians are descendants of romanized Dacians.
in the US (except Florida)
Sorry to tell you this, but there are a few other states besides Florida with stupid defense laws. I'm about 90% sure that Arizona and Texas have similar laws. In New Jersey, you're only allowed to defend yourself if you've been backed into an inescapable situation. This is very reasonable.
I assume that in the story presented, that if the harassment was going on for a year, then nothing was done by any of the staff to curb it, and he was in such a distressed emotional state that he felt there was no other option than violence. It's not the best option, of course, but I'm having a really difficult time feeling sorry for the girl.
The roma is what you guys call Gypsies, who come from Asia. Romanians are a latin descendants like spaniards and french.
Yep, which is why Romanian is one of the Romance languages