Here’s the thing: There’s a difference between blind speculation and experience-based speculation. But our legal system isn’t equipped to differentiate between the two. In any incident involving white people causing harm to Black people, there will be speculation that the incident was racially motivated. In many cases, there won’t be any racial slurs or verbal indications that race played a part in an attack. But Black people will see the racism based on our experience with racism. In other words: We know it was racist because we’ve seen this before.
But that will never match up with the burden of proof our legal system requires before it will call something racist, regardless of how obvious the racism is. And that’s why the Morgan County school bus driver who was caught on camera pushing a 6-year-old Black child and his 10-year-old Black sister will not be called a racist when he stands trial—at least not by the court.
According to the Morgan Citizen, James O’Neil, the now-former bus driver in question (he was fired after the video went viral), has been arrested and charged with two counts of simple battery after the recorded incident that took place earlier this month. He was booked in the Morgan County Detention Center, where he spent a day before being bonded out.
“The investigation resulted in the arrest of James O’Neil on two counts of simple battery,” Morgan County Chief Deputy Keith Howard said in a statement. “While this was not a complex investigation, it was complicated by the allegation that the incident was perceived as being racially motivated.”
“Investigators took additional time to investigate all the facts to include consulting with prosecutors in the Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit,” he went on to say. “Investigators could not establish a nexus that the incident was racially motivated.”
So, how do we know it was racist? Well we don’t—not for sure—but we’ve seen the adultification of Black children at the hands of white authority figures before. We see it in the statistical evidence that Black students are disproportionately and more harshly disciplined than their white counterparts. We saw it when a 9-year-old Black girl was forced into the back of a police car and pepper sprayed while she was severely distraught and begging for help. We saw it when Aurora, Colorado, police pulled over a Black family in an SUV (despite the vehicle description they were given being a motorcycle) and had young Black girls—the youngest of whom was also 6 years old—lying face-down on the ground while handcuffed and frantically crying.
The adultification of Black children was demonstrably what happened on that school bus.
* Article from: newsone.com