When is a science experiment a learning experience or a crime? If you are Black and live in Bartow, Fla., it is a crime.
Kiera Wilmot, a 16-year-old African-American student at Bartow High School, was arrested and expelled for a science experiment that went wrong. Kiera had mixed together some household chemicals, toilet bowl cleaner and aluminum foil in a small water bottle.
On the account of many witnesses, Kiera’s science experiment triggered just a tiny pop and a small amount of smoke. No one was hurt, and no damage occurred. Kiera Wilmot is an excellent student, earning good grades, and she had a perfect behavior record.
Yet police led Wilmot away in handcuffs and charged her with “possession/discharge of a weapon on school property and discharging a destructive device.” She was taken to a juvenile assessment center. The school district then expelled her. She will now have to finish high school in a program for expelled students.
To be tried as an adult
Although Wilmot is only 16, she will be tried as an adult.
How could an otherwise model student be expelled and charged with a felony over an experiment that did not hurt anyone?
Kiara’s arrest is part of a sickening trend that shows Black students facing far harsher punishments in public schools than their white peers. According to a report on Democracy Now! in March 2012: “Data released by the U.S. Department of Education in 2012 show that while Black students constituted only 18 percent of those enrolled in the schools studied, they accounted for 39 percent of all school expulsions. Black students were three-and-a-half times as likely overall to be suspended or expelled than white students.
School reports also showed that more than 70 percent of students involved in school-related arrests or referred to local law enforcement were Black or Latino. Students of color with disabilities were also disproportionately subjected to physical restraints.”
The disproportionate arrest of African Americans fuels the racist myth that most Black youth are criminals and should be treated as such.
Quality education for all, not jail!
Hands off our youth of color!
