As if things are not already crazy enough with the ever-growing list of things that it's dangerous to do while black (driving, walking, standing outside of a store, playing with a toy gun, etc.), now you also have to add watch how you smell!!
NC High Schooler Who Passed Drug Test Suspended for Smelling Like Weed
Now, of course there is quite a bit of background missing from this article; as usual, it actually leaves more questions than it answers! For instance, why was the SRO searching for drugs in the first place? Were the students sitting at desks in rows like I remember sitting, with a student on either side? If so, how did he single out Jakayla Johnson for closer attention, as opposed to the students on either side of her, or the ones in front or behind? How was this SRO qualified to say that he was smelling weed and it was on her hands from use and not from having shaken someone's hand or held an article of clothing that smelled? And these aren't farfetched or made up things I'm saying. I used to be a heavy tobacco smoker, (a pack to a pack and a half a day) and I know what the smoke did to my clothing, my hair, and everything around me. If I was in the car it was enveloping me as I drove, so when I got to my destination and took off something like a cap or a scarf, hours later when I went back to get the item not only did it still smell, but everything in the closet or area where I left it smelled like tobacco smoke!! (That's one of the reasons I had to quit BTW.) I'm saying this because I know that it is possible to smell like something when you personally have had no contact with it. It's just so unfair, how do you suspend someone for allegedly smelling a certain way? Can you imagine the doors this can open? A teacher has a personal issue with a student and decides one day that the student has to go. Teacher calls the principal, says they smelled marijuana on the child when they came into class so they need to be removed. Easy Peasy, except for the fact that everyone is entitled to due process, including kids in school. There's no law on the books that says that a person can be convicted and punished on the basis of how they smell! Unfortunately, it wouldn't be the first time authority has been abused in that manner....
Jakayla Johnson |
So Jakayla Johnson was suspended for smelling like weed. Her mother of course is outraged, but even if the school backtracks (which they won't) the damage has been done. Other schools, other SROs, other places around the country will be trying the same thing.
When are people going to see just how bad things are getting? Now you can haul a child out of class and suspend her because of how she allegedly smelled!! She wasn't even acting funny or talking funny, she allegedly smelled like weed, so now she has to miss days of school; what happened to reading is fundamental, and the big push to improve the literacy rates in our schools?
This is just the type of thing that is going to begin happening more and more, people being snatched off the street and incarcerated for nothing more than a suspicion based on a smell. It's where our country is headed... Big Brother's finally gotten loose folks, and it's not just a fiction novel anymore.
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