Part of me resonates with that kid. Nobody deserves to have their bacon forcibly taken from them. It’s just not right.
But that’s not what stand out most to me from that clip. No, it’s actually the realization that one of the best things we can do for the next generation is model the art of constructive criticism for them. We’re not doing it well. Kanye West thinks it’s ok to verbally throw a President under the bus during a telathon and jump people whenever he feels like it. Joe Wilson directs a rude outburst at a President, which pretty much just makes him a normal American.
An 8-year-old kid doesn’t come up with a tirade like that all by himself. He sees behavior like that modeled for him, and his parents don’t say anything when he has outbursts like that. So in grade school he is miffed that a well-spoken black woman “out of the blue thinks she’s a smart little girl”.
If we project this kid’s behavior out 10 or 20 years, how do we think he’s going to treat black people as an adult?
If we project our kid’s behavior out 10 or 20 years after they spend their childhood watching and emulating adults who can’t talk respectfully to/about their leaders and peers?
Renew and Restore
