...I'll Give You Something to Cry About!

Alright. Granted, this story is full of holes. Journalism just isn't what it used to be. If you know of a more complete version of this story, please let me know. The rather sketchy version can be found here.

The basics are a woman saw another woman "beating" her nephew in the bathroom of a summer camp. Woman #1 was an employee of the "summer program" organization. Woman #2 was the aunt of the 6 year old boy who had been called because the boy was acting up ("5 write ups for bad behavior") during the summer program. Woman #1 did not approve, tried to tell those in charge what happened, and, according to her, got fired because of it. Woman #1 is white. Woman #2, the boy, and those in charge are black.

There is a lot going on here. On the surface, this seems to be a story about someone not following procedures, cultural divide and defining child abuse. If they did have performance related reasons to fire the woman, then there should be documentation to back that up if people followed procedures. However, as someone who got her share of "whuppins", I can tell you that black people historically have not been interested in the finer points of non-contact child development. We have had neither the time, energy nor education to calmly give our children time outs or a good talking to. What usually needed to happen was an immediate demonstration of who was in charge and that involved getting your ass beat. Please note that I said "ass beat". Not your head, neck or shoulders. In my mind, hitting a child in those areas is abuse. Slapping a hand, swatting a thigh or spanking a butt are acceptable consequences of repeated misbehavior in my world. Have you ever tried to reason with a 2 year old while they're running away from you into the street? Toddlers go through this phase of thinking everything is funny, including you screaming in horror for them to stop and come back. But I digress. What I'm getting at is that there is a difference between a spanking and child abuse, and if the kid doesn't respond to other kinder/gentler forms of punishment, what's left? In fact, the mother of the boy chimes in to that effect on one of the comments below the article.

One of the funny things about this is the woman who was fired was "working as a cultural program coordinator at the South Shore Cultural Center, a Chicago Park District facility." As a cultural program coordinator in Chicago, would you not be acquainted with black folk spanking their children? Did you miss the "Corporal Punishment in Different Cultures" chapter in school?

In her defense and all kidding aside, she did previously work with the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, so she's more sensitive to it than others. God bless people who work to speak for children who aren't heard. God have mercy on those who think that abusing children is acceptable. But like so many things, interpretation is the tricky factor. One person's "discipline" in another person's "abuse".