When Fear Dictates

In two incidents on vastly different scales but with similar outcomes, the power and influence of fear has come about in the decision making process.

Three days ago, the Huntington School Board voted to shutdown Jack Abrams Intermediate School due to shootings and violence in the area.

A few days ago, it was decided that some journalism classmates and friends from OU would no longer be going on a month long trip to Uganda.

Now, the magnitude of violence upon which each decision was based is surely greatly different. The OU trip was canceled because of a terrorist attack that happened just over a week earlier in the country, when al-Shabab insurgents took innocent lives of those gathered to watch the World Cup final.

While Uganda has experienced relative peace in the years since the Juba talks, you cannot fault the decision to cancel this trip. It is just unfortunate timing for those who were planning on going. That said, there is a real risk. Terrorist attacks do not happen everyday. But to be in a third world country, which was just attacked, for a month is risky.

Now, to a local level. The closing of Jack Abrams Intermediate due to area violence. Unlike the incident in Uganda, the violence in the Huntington Station area has been going on for years, not affecting the children at the intermediate school. I went to school there a a decade ago and it was not the safest area. It was not rare to be on the playground and see a condom beside a Pringles can as a fourth grader. But school went on. I still remember many of my teachers and experiences from the three years I spent there relatively fondly.

So, there have been a few shootings in the area now in the past few weeks. The final straw in this process came with the shooting death of a 16-year-old, which occurred around 1:25 A.M, the wee hours of a Sunday morning. Yes, these violent incidents are a problem and yes, there has been a proliferation with four between July 4th and July 13th. But the violence has not had any relation to the day-to-day activities at the school. Are the perpetrators really dumb enough to have a shootout near a now heavily policed school in broad daylight? I highly doubt it.

This is an instance of the School Board showing cowardice, running away from the problem rather than working to address it. There's always an easy way out. It may look more appealing. But in the long term it usually doesn't solve the problem. Sometimes it only makes it worse or, even leads to new ones.

So now what? Supposed safety in favor of: more overcrowded classes, less resources with students jammed into fewer schools. Dilution as a result of fear. And forget this community that has been plagued by violence. Let's scamper away now and take away one of the few positive foundations of the area. Except there's the suggestion of an...alternative school down the line. What does this say to the community? The area is not good enough to school mainstream students but those who may choose alternative school can handle it.  

Fear is a sentiment to be taken seriously. In some cases (the Uganda trip), its ramifications are warranted. In others (Jack Abrams Intermediate), fear leads to even more dangerous overreactions than the supposed danger that caused it in the first place.