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The subject of grief is perhaps an unusual academic interest but it is one of mine. "Grieving shouldn't be a privilege," is an essay about the stark contrasts between the systemic response to the writer's childhood loss and that of the student at the center of the horrific incident that just occurred in a South Carolina high school this week.
In that incident, an unarmed student was brutally attacked by a police officer for texting during class and later refusing to leave the classroom. The student is a 16-year-old black female and the officer is a white male. The officer has since been fired, but the student still faces criminal charges.
It has been reported that the student was recently orphaned and is currently living in foster care. The source is her lawyer, so the reports appear to be true. Though we do not know the details of the losses she has suffered, I can only assume (and the writer assumes) that the student is actively grieving. This certainly sheds some light on her behavior (behavior which is, I might add, completely age appropriate and to be expected from time to time in a high school setting, and which is usually responded to with proportionate behavioral discipline and not with savage physical assault). What happened to her inside of her high school classroom is abhorrent by itself. It is made worse somehow to know that in that moment, and every moment since, the girl is also grieving and in pain.
I was bowled over by this essay for personal reasons, though I do not claim to relate to the experiences of a black female high school student in foster care who was subjected to police brutality inside of her school and who now faces entering the juvenile criminal justice system, not to mention ongoing national exposure. I have never experienced discrimination and injustices like these and certainly not because of my race.
As the essay suggests, school should be a refuge for a grieving child. Instead, this student was made a victim of state-sponsored violence, which has only served to traumatize, humiliate and isolate her further. This student was not allowed to be present with her grief. This was a privilege afforded to the writer in high school and to me as well.
I know a bit about being a grieving child. My father died the summer before I started high school. That kind of loss is severe and dark. Still, I had advantages this girl did not have. During my freshman year, I was provided with so much safety and support by teachers, administrators and counselors at my school that it never occurred to me to think about those experiences in the context of privilege until now. Though mine were not as extreme as the writer's experiences (I never failed any classes or needed my records to be erased, for example), my grief was still acknowledged and allowed in a way that is clearly not available to everyone.
I know a bit about being a grieving child. My father died the summer before I started high school. That kind of loss is severe and dark. Still, I had advantages this girl did not have. During my freshman year, I was provided with so much safety and support by teachers, administrators and counselors at my school that it never occurred to me to think about those experiences in the context of privilege until now. Though mine were not as extreme as the writer's experiences (I never failed any classes or needed my records to be erased, for example), my grief was still acknowledged and allowed in a way that is clearly not available to everyone.
The writer explains how she recognized grief in the student just by watching the video. She seems to experience a feeling of solidarity with the student in this moment. It is only a glimpse, but I can see it, too. I think in those first few milliseconds there is also much more to her demeanor than grief. There is complete numbness, despondence and powerlessness. There is a bracing for the inevitable. Everything has already been taken away from her. In an instant, her physical agency, and potentially her future, are also taken from her. Her life is in danger in those moments. She survived but was injured in physical, emotional, and innumerable social ways as well.
Racially charged incidents like these are finally beginning to be seen for what they are. This incident was despicable and outrageous and unfortunately, likely common. Though firing police officers hardly fixes the problem there is at least some semblance of a response. This, of course, is not enough.
Recognizing grief in a disadvantaged, abused high school student is not enough either. This essay is an example of that. It is mostly about the writer's own experiences. The absence of information about the South Carolina girl in this essay on its own is powerful. The fact that we don't know anything about her grief and loss is a kind of intentional silence. In that blank space, injustice is all too evident.