Dr. White,
I was listening to your show this morning and I must say the story about the young man facing prison time for bringing a blow-up doll to school is disturbing, to say the least. However, I must say people in general and Black folk especially need to respond to this incident in the appropriate manner in order to effect meaningful change. What do I mean by this? While it is tempting to make this an issue of race, and it might be, we’ve been down this road before. Making this incident solely a race issue is going to accomplish very little. Sure, people will have emotional reactions and there will be those who will say “if he was white…” However, after all that is said and done, what will the end result be? Who knows? But, if history is best qualified to reward all research, what we do know is there will be other incidents just like this one occurring somewhere within these United States. And so the cycle continues.

As a psychologist I know that the functional definition of insanity is to do the same thing the same way over and over and expect to get a different result. Yet this is exactly what we (Black folk) continue to do concerning issues such as this, and as we have seen, we keep getting the same results; more issues like this. I would suggest that instead of making this issue about race, which is divisive and in this case subjective; make it about the cognitive capacities of adolescents. Why do I say this? I want to change the rules as they apply to ALL adolescents and not just this one particular child. Therefore a consensus will be needed to change the rules and regulations as they relate to the discipline of adolescents. Most mature adults, both Black and White, know teenagers do foolish stuff. And, the neurological research is definitive that teenagers lack the cognitive capacity to fully appreciate the consequences of their actions. This is why the Supreme Court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional for anyone under the age of 21. This is the point we should argue and not the “if he was white…” As I stated, we’ve been down that road before. Further, using scientifically based evidence instead of emotional reactions will go a long way towards changing policies and procedures that affect ALL children and not just the outcome for this particular child.

To me, (I can’t speak for others) it is about initiating a sustained effort, using logic and empirical evidence with the end result being SYSTEMIC change and not emotional reactions that scream “see, racism still exist. I told you!” but accomplishes little else. It is high time for us Black folk to start having Movements again, not sensational Moments.

This might not have anything to do with race, but we have got to tell our children not to do these stupid pranks for laughs…We have elevated from sticking chewing gums on chairs in the classrooms to bringing in bow up dolls, what the hell are we telling our children? I told my children when they were in school to keep their hands off the opposite sex and not to make any sexual tinged jokes to any females or males…We as parents have to be prepared for incidents like this, because this might or could have been someone bringing weapons into this school to seek revenge against bullies…Since Columbine, we have entered a whole new era of what constitutes terrorist activities in schools…

[...] Tuesday, we were contacted by the Atlanta talk show, Powertalk with Lorraine Jacques White (click to hear podcast) and I have to say, the interview gave us the opportunity to get more of Tyell’s story out [...]

A tough and very real lesson for most young black men to learn. They do not possess a white privilege free pass to engage in adolescent pranks like the white boys of summer.

My take: Tyell Morton initiated a pretty funny albeit a pretty tame prank. In a normal world the joke would not be not so much foolish but rather really quite amusing. I hope this man’s sense of creative humor is not fettered long term by the super humorless dolts that feel (I guess out of something like deep senses of insecurity or general feeble mindlessness) need to justify their festering existence with stupidity and when they can with zealous corrupt exercise of power.
I wish the creative Mr. Morton a great and mirthful life and hope that he may, at some point in the future, will be able to leverage his new found fame into possibly a lucrative stand up comedic career.
But that’s just me projecting enthusiastically for this guy.
Whatever Mr. Morton’s career choice ….I hope he does not become cowed and boring, does not lose his sense of humor and always honors the sparks of his creative genius……Go Tyell………………..