Black Children May Be Harmed if Teachers Bring Guns to School

No, more police on campus isn’t the answer, either

According to multiple studies, White adults, who make up the majority of K-12 teachers in the United States and the UK, often view Black children as being more aggressive, mischievous, and ‘adult-like’ than White children. The result is that Black students are punished more often and more severely than their White peers. Black children are not at fault here, but White people’s overactive and racialized imaginations are dangerous and may even turn deadly if teachers are allowed to bear arms in the classroom.

If police already view Black and White children differently, and tend to treat Black children with more suspicion, why would we expect teachers who hold similar biases to behave differently? Right now in America, Black children are six times more likely to be killed by police than White children (who are also more often given the benefit of the doubt and treated as though they are not completely responsible for the actions due to their age). We’ve seen incidents of officers using excessive force on Black children at school before. We don’t need any more White and racially biased authority figures with guns around our children.