"A Precipitating Event"

A black mother addresses racial issues with all-white panel of Amherst town officials

If you're Irish you can crack jokes about alcohol; if you're a young supposedly hip black youth you can use the N-word among other young supposedly hip black youth.  Sort of.

But over the past few years -- because of the pervasiveness of hip hop music -- a kind of cultural homogenization has occurred where white youth (or in Madonna's case, older white women) have adopted a variation of the N-word (5 letters rather than 6, ending in "a" rather than "er") as a term of endearment.

However, when you transmit either N-word over social media where anybody can see it, you're asking for trouble.  BIG trouble.

This sad story starts ironically enough over Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, after a white youth (I'm going to call him "Justin" but that is not his name) posted a note of congratulations to his close friend, who is black, using the shorter (supposedly hip) version of the N-word.

Other black youth took offense and aggressively let Justin know it.

The original "threat" on the Facebook confessions page was actually submitted that weekend (January 18) but did not see the light of bandwidth until Saturday, January 25 a week later (the confessions page is moderated and a bevy of saved up "confessions" are published simultaneously) and was quickly spotted by School Superintendent Maria Geryk Sunday evening, January 26.

Obviously Justin was trying to send up a warning flare about being bullied.  And the events of the previous week, days after he first tried to post his "confession," demonstrate why:

On Tuesday, January 21 Justin had an altercation with a black youth upset about his Facebook congratulatory post to his friend (who is black).  It was heated enough for Justin's father, who works in the schools, to stop in the next day (Wednesday January 22) and consult with Dean of Students, Mary Custard.

She of course had problems with either version of the N-word.  The father agreed to tell Justin to stop using it (and had in fact done so in the past), even as a term of endearment.  At the meeting Ms. Custard informed the father she had been in contact with the parents of the black youth (his father also works for the schools) involved in the Tuesday confrontation.

Now Justin's father  became "dismayed" that he was not initially consulted for this official attempt at fact finding.  Even though they live in a surrounding city, the schools would certainly have his contact information and he does, after all, work in the building.

And he let Ms. Custard know, "The situation needs to be quelled before it gets out of hand."  On the morning of Friday, January 24th it did get out of hand, as one of the black youths escalated from verbal abuse to getting physical with Justin. 

The father again paid a call on Ms. Custard, but then tried to go over her head to Principal Mark Jackson, who was not in his office.  So he consulted with Vice Principal Michael Thompson, who promised to set up a meeting on Monday between the warring students, Ms. Custard and Principal Jackson.

In the meantime Vice Principal Thompson told Justin to go to lunch and if any problems with the other combative kids should arise, to seek out the nearest adult to act as referee/cop.

After lunch the problem happened yet again.  Justin, angry and hurt, called his father to tell him of the altercation and reported he was signing himself out of school.  The meeting scheduled for Monday never happened because the school suddenly closed due to Justin's Facebook "threat" discovered on Sunday night.

Through the snooping skills of Information Technology guru Kris Pacunas town officials and police discovered Justin was the perpetrator of the Facebook "threat" somewhere between 3:00 and 3:30 early Monday morning.

A few hours later Justin's father received a call from Amherst Police to come in for an interview, where he described how well his guns were stored.  As an ex-marine the father is well versed on the proper handling and respect shown for firearms, starting-and-ending with security.

Around 9:00 a.m. Monday morning local city police showed up and the father willingly turned over all the guns, even though they were legally owned and legally stored.  Police have determined Justin never actually carried a firearm into the schools.

The Mass State PD  bomb squad screamed through Amherst town center around 11:30 a.m. Monday morning heading to the High School to do a complete sweep for guns and bombs, although bombs were never mentioned in the Facebook "threat."

At the "community meeting" on Monday night (Justin and his family did not attend) school officials focused on the Facebook post as the "precipitating event".  A concerned audience member begged to differ, although she portrayed Justin as pretty much a KKK member.

School officials first informed parents and guardians only an hour or so before school normally starts  Monday morning (January 27) that ARHS was closed due to "unforeseen circumstances."

Perhaps if administrators opened their eyes a week earlier, those circumstances would be far from unforeseen.  After all, the first step is to recognize you have a problem.

The Republican reports (front page no less)