Hate Crime Committed...By 9-Year-Old Boy!

Get a load of this one! A 9-year-old boy in Arizona was suspended for three days for using the phrase 'brown people'. They called it a 'hate crime'.

Now, please understand that I'm not condoning any racial implication of this statement, but are we seriously going to call this a 'hate crime'?! This is exactly what I've been predicting - 'hate crimes' are nothing more than an attempt to control what people think.

But, if you read into this story, there is even more about which to be disturbed:

In an interview Monday, [Principal] Voinovich would not address her comments, first saying she didn't remember the incident, then demanding a copy of the recording [from a recorded parent-teacher conference] and finally insisting that she could not talk about a student's discipline.

The circumstances of the boy’s suspension itself raise troubling questions about student discipline, interrogation and oversight at Abraham Lincoln.

According to school officials, the boy made a statement about “brown people” to another elementary student with whom he was having a conflict. They maintain it was his second offense using the phrase.

But the tape recording indicates this only came out after another parent was allowed to question the boy and elicited from him the statement that he “doesn't cooperate with brown people.”

After that was reported to the boy's teacher, he was made to stand in front of his class and publicly confess what he'd said.

The boy maintains that he never said it; that the words were put in his mouth by the parent who questioned him. That parent happens to be the mother of the student with whom he is having a conflict—and she happens to work for Abraham Lincoln as a detention-room officer.

The tape indicates that rather than just spouting off with racial invective, the boy was asked first why he didn't want to cooperate with brown people by the parent/school official.

In court, this might be called entrapment. Not to mention a conflict of interest.

Is anyone else getting angry yet? It appears this kid was set up in a big way. But wait...yes, there's even more:

Neve [the boy's mother] said school officials didn’t advise her of the incident until several days after they questioned her son. When Neve objected to the suspension during conference, Voinovich told her that she didn't have any rights; that parents give up their rights to discipline when they send a child to school, the tape shows.

Is anyone else a little angry at this point?! Let's go down the list:
- a 9-year-old boy is accused by school officials of a 'hate crime' and suspended for three days
- the alleged 'hate crime' only came out after a school official -- the parent of the kid's opponent -- asked a leading question
- the principal offered multiple stories to the parent, finally stating that the parent had no rights in regard to disciplining her own child

Can we say private school, anyone?

There's my two cents.