A Confused View of Law

There is a great paradox that I see in many of my students, and it frightens me. I observe behaviors and overhear in their conversations attitudes that suggest they have somehow taken a personal behavior choice that is direly illegal and view it as normal, everyday, nothing-wrong-with-it behavior, and they have taken a common, everyday behavior choice (granted not universally accepted, but also not illegal) and view it as so direly wrong that it excuses and even necessitates illegal behaviors simply in response.

• THIEVERY - I can’t get over it. It is the most common wrong that students engage in (in my observation), and it is incredibly pervasive. In my first five years of teaching, I have had two cell phones, an MP3 player, several props and costumes, and an entire backpack stolen, and that’s just what *I* own - students in my room have had a giant quantity of itemst stolen. When it happens, people act as if I am somehow strange for being so upset, rather than just accepting it nonchalantly and moving on. In other circumstances, I overhear conversations from students discussing things they have stolen, and expressing the worldview that everyone, literally everyone steals things, and that makes it okay. I have read many works of student writing that express this same worldview, both in recollections of personal experiences in stealing, and in opinions of hearing others having stolen things. Today, I actually watched a student, very bright and polite and (I thought) a model student and very trustworthy, place a baseball cap that was sitting on a table in my classroom in his bookbag, and then remain motionless and silent for a few seconds when the owner came around looking for it, waiting until I loudly made it clear that I knew someone in the room had taken it before he gave in and returned it to the table from his bag… and even after all that, his demeanor was smiling, sheepish playfulness, as if it was just a joke. So many of my students view theivery in the same frustrating light that many adults view speeding - there is nothing wrong with it bad enough to hold it against the perpertrator as long as they don’t get caught, or are willing to pay the “fine” when they do, almost like paying “dues” that allow them to freely break the law all the rest of the time.
  
• HOMOSEXUALITY - This bothers me just as much, honestly maybe more. These same students who freely admit to theivery and consider it a normal thing everyone does that has nothing wrong with it view homosexuality - just being homosexual - as a transgression so heinous that it excuses some of the most disturbing behaviors in response. At least once in all of the past three years, I have overheard a student, when he didn’t realize others were listening and was relaxed and just swapping stories with a friend, brag about mugging someone they percieve to be a “homo.” In all four instances, the story never included any provokation from the victim - nothing said or done that hurt the perpetrator, not even the lousy excuse I’ve heard used on television before that the person acted or spoke in a manner to show personal interest in the perpetrator - but rather were instances when the victim was in circumstances when he had no reason to believe they were in danger and were completely blindsided (that they catch their victims by surprise is usually a note of boast for them). The perpetrators speak in frightening detail and with shocking pride and fond recollection of the physical harms that they visited upon their victim. And finally, the braggings always close with a statement that is an approximate conjugation of the phrase “He deserved the beating he received because he is a ‘homo’.”

What a terrifying world we live in where the sociology surrounding urban youth, combining economic desparation, deranged fundamentalism, and violence apologists, have produced a worldview where thievery is a daily norm for all people, but simply existing and having an interest in the same sex is grounds for public beatings.