Social Justice | A VOICE TO BE HEARD

About a month and five days ago, (August 26, 2021) a video surfaced on the internet where a black teenager (16-year old Jamir Strane) was pinned down by his teacher (William Bennett) and pulled in his hair while the student screamed in pain. The boy reacted by punching the teacher in his face and has been charged for assault in addition to the ten days suspension meted out to him.

Advertisements

The cause of the incident is that Strane was using a bandana as a mask for which he was castigated by his teacher who thought that he was deliquent. The teacher then referred to Strane as “Another Black Boy that Got Shot” The incident happened at Eric C. Moore High School in Louisville, Kentucky, United States.
Reacting to the incident, Renee Murphy who is Jefferson County Public School’s Spokeswoman noted that the teacher had been suspended from the classroom but reassigned to the district’s materials production department where he will be working on non-instructional duties.The lad’s mother, Erica Strane on her part started a Go Fund Me Page in furtherance of seeking justice for her son in the law courts and paying attendant legal fees.

Fervently do we hope however that there will be less altercations like that experienced between Jamir Strane and William Bennett in future. Fervently do we hope and earnestly do we crave a world where there is respect for the dignity of the human person so jealously guarded by Article 1 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UNDHR 1948) ; a world in which respect and love for one another is not just a carrot dangled in the faces of people, which they cannot eat; a world in which there is no disrespect on the basis of gender, social class or race. For the sake of clarity, Article 1 of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights provides thus: “[a]ll human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”