Dallas school district forced to apologize for essay depicting Kyle Rittenhouse as a hero

[NewYorkExpress]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/dallas-school-district-apologizes-assignment-describing-kenosha-shooter-hero-n1240315

The Dallas Independent School district apologized for an assignment that asked high school students to write an essay about a modern "hero" and suggested Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old charged with killing two people during protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin.


Rittenhouse was suggested as "hero for the modern age" along with the possible subjects of Gandhi, Cesar Chavez, Malcolm X, George Floyd and Joseph Rosenbaum — one of the Rittenhouse's alleged victims.

Rittenhouse, of Antioch, Illinois, was arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree intentional homicide in connection with the Aug. 25 shooting deaths of Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber during protests over the shooting by police of Jacob Blake, a Black man, in Kenosha.

Kristian Hernandez said that her younger brother, a student at W.T. White High School in Dallas, shared details of the assignment with his family.

[Landslide Lyndon]

I bet that teacher also taught his students that John Wilkes Booth was a hero too.

[Fuzzy Bear]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/dallas-school-district-apologizes-assignment-describing-kenosha-shooter-hero-n1240315

Let's look at the actual assignment:



Let's look at the statements of the offended party:

Kristian Hernandez said that her younger brother, a student at W.T. White High School in Dallas, shared details of the assignment with his family.

"My brother was really in disbelief that this was actually an assignment," Hernandez told NBC affiliate KXAS.

"The juxtaposition of George Floyd's name with Kyle's name was just astounding," she said. “The value of Black lives are not up for debate, and that’s what it felt like this was sort of getting at — by way of the names that were included."

Lionizing Kyle Rittenhouse is always a possibility when you allow truly free thought.  

I really don't give a crap that Mr. Hernandez or her brother were offended.  Free thinking is bound to offend people.  Their "offense" implies that the national liberal narrative on the current issue be accepted without question, including the part that Santa Claus comes down the chimney on Christmas Eve the vast majority of protests were "mostly peaceful".  This is what freedom of thought looks like and sounds like.  

Now I would not have suggested such an assignment, and Rittenhouse isn't one of my heroes; he's a criminal defendant whose guilt has yet to be determined in a Court of Law.  Ms. Hernandez wishes the school to be an Echo Chamber.  If we are going to have Echo Chamber schools, that's fine, but I would prefer that the Echo Chamber reinforce the highly defensible idea that America is a Good Nation and reject the nonsense of garbage such as the current news narrative (let alone Critical Race Theory and the 1619 project).

[Badger]

So glad to have fuzzy on ignore. Please people, just ignore him and don't repost whenever blather he posted so I have to read it.

[lfromnj]

Anyway lets look at the assignment, I think my main problem is that the last 2 or 3 people should have been done separately and none of them are really heroes although Floyd is a Martyr to many people. Notice how Rosenbaum was also in the list? That was the first man who chased Kyle and we don't know if he was provoked. The last 2 was just telling students to analyze what happened in Kenosha. and go through different sides of the case and decide who was acting in the right. I don't think this is super appropriate for a high school level class but I think it would be for college if the professor seperated the groups of people and didn't call the last 3 heroes.

So overall perhaps the teacher probably should apologize but lets not go on an all out cancel train for doing an assignment that promotes something society sorely lacks: critical thinking.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Objectively the most heroic person on that list, and it's not particularly close.

[Stranger in a strange land]

I realize this is bait but I'll bite: Rittenhouse and Rosenbaum are not heroes. Taking up arms for what you believe in is not inherently heroic, and is often quite the opposite. Either of them would gladly see the country burn for their preferred ideology to succeed, which is not heroic. Likewise, not every soldier who goes off to fight in a war is a hero.

And also, is George Floyd a hero? Yes, he died in an absolutely tragic and horrific manner. His death cast a bright light on problems of racism and iniquity that have existed for hundreds of years. But did he at any point actually do anything heroic? That Derek Chauvin was obviously the villain in that story doesn't necessarily make Floyd a hero.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Yeah, Rittenhouse is a villain and Floyd is a victim, arguably a martyr, but not a hero. Interpreting him as a hero runs the risk of falsely implying that it is his supposed heroic qualities rather than his common humanity that make what was done to him horrific.

[NewYorkExpress]

I realize this is bait but I'll bite: Rittenhouse and Rosenbaum are not heroes. Taking up arms for what you believe in is not inherently heroic, and is often quite the opposite. Either of them would gladly see the country burn for their preferred ideology to succeed, which is not heroic. Likewise, not every soldier who goes off to fight in a war is a hero.

And also, is George Floyd a hero? Yes, he died in an absolutely tragic and horrific manner. His death cast a bright light on problems of racism and iniquity that have existed for hundreds of years. But did he at any point actually do anything heroic? That Derek Chauvin was obviously the villain in that story doesn't necessarily make Floyd a hero.

Basically this in a nutshell.

Cops may be horrible people, but that doesn't make their victims heroes automatically.

[Badger]

I realize this is bait but I'll bite: Rittenhouse and Rosenbaum are not heroes. Taking up arms for what you believe in is not inherently heroic, and is often quite the opposite. Either of them would gladly see the country burn for their preferred ideology to succeed, which is not heroic. Likewise, not every soldier who goes off to fight in a war is a hero.

And also, is George Floyd a hero? Yes, he died in an absolutely tragic and horrific manner. His death cast a bright light on problems of racism and iniquity that have existed for hundreds of years. But did he at any point actually do anything heroic? That Derek Chauvin was obviously the villain in that story doesn't necessarily make Floyd a hero.

We can appreciate the important Focus the George Floyd case brought to police brutality without wrongly referring to Floyd as a hero. The people who channeled the outrage into the largely peaceful Nationwide BLM movement are the real heroes.

And it's the exact same thing can be said about Rodney King, FYI. Yes, he and Floyd were both kind of Shifty dudes, but who in no manner shape or form deserved what happened to them, and despite their personal shortcomings reflected the threats African American men wrongly undergo every day in this country from police.

[Benjamin Frank]

1.Rittenhouse said it was 'his job' to defend the buildings and administer aid to people there.  It was not 'his job:' nobody hired him to do it.  He was engaging in illegal vigilantism and was illegally breaking the curfew to do it.

2.This is something I haven't seen mentioned anywhere else, and it seems such an obvious point to me:  Of all of the vigilantes, rioters and protesters there, he was the only one who killed another person.  Irrespective of whether he acted in self defense or not, nobody else there, in that intense situation, had a problem where they had to kill another person.

Irrespective of anything else, Rittenhouse is clearly a mentally troubled young person with some kind of need to be a hero, or who sees himself as some kind of hero, who was completely in over his head, untrained and ill prepared for what he chose to get himself involved in, and, as a result, two people are unnecessarily dead.

[T'Chenka]

I see nothing wrong with this assignment itself, other than the fact that some will intepret it incorrectly as political. The teacher was giving the smarter students a "hard mode" option to get higher marks on if they could successfully portray Rittenhouse or Floyd as heroes.

EASY MODE
Gandhi, Chavez (obvious)

MEDIUM MODE
Malcolm X, Rosenbaum (flawed but did good things)

HARD MODE
Floyd (didn't himself do anything heroic)
Rittenhouse (a brave "hero" but actually a murderous psycho)

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

That is a poor selection since someone could easily consider none of these people heroes, but it's dumb to be offended by the inclusion of someone you don't think is a hero.

[Santander]

Is there even half a page to write a biography about a 17 year old kid?

[sparkey]

1.Rittenhouse said it was 'his job' to defend the buildings and administer aid to people there.  It was not 'his job:' nobody hired him to do it.  He was engaging in illegal vigilantism and was illegally breaking the curfew to do it.

In what world does the fact that he was volunteering rather than being paid make guarding a shop and helping out as a medic vigilantism?

2.This is something I haven't seen mentioned anywhere else, and it seems such an obvious point to me:  Of all of the vigilantes, rioters and protesters there, he was the only one who killed another person.  Irrespective of whether he acted in self defense or not, nobody else there, in that intense situation, had a problem where they had to kill another person.

The too-obvious answer is that he was the only one who was attacked like that.

It's worth asking why he got into a situation where he was attacked, and the answer to that seems to be that he was the only one who went to act as a medic and help put out fires, which isolated him from his friend back at the shop when the police moved.

Irrespective of anything else, Rittenhouse is clearly a mentally troubled young person with some kind of need to be a hero, or who sees himself as some kind of hero, who was completely in over his head, untrained and ill prepared for what he chose to get himself involved in, and, as a result, two people are unnecessarily dead.

And what's your psychoanalysis of his attackers? Surely more in over their heads, untrained and ill prepared for what they chose to get involved in, than Rittenhouse?

[Santander]

1.Rittenhouse said it was 'his job' to defend the buildings and administer aid to people there.  It was not 'his job:' nobody hired him to do it.  He was engaging in illegal vigilantism and was illegally breaking the curfew to do it.

2.This is something I haven't seen mentioned anywhere else, and it seems such an obvious point to me:  Of all of the vigilantes, rioters and protesters there, he was the only one who killed another person.  Irrespective of whether he acted in self defense or not, nobody else there, in that intense situation, had a problem where they had to kill another person.

Irrespective of anything else, Rittenhouse is clearly a mentally troubled young person with some kind of need to be a hero, or who sees himself as some kind of hero, who was completely in over his head, untrained and ill prepared for what he chose to get himself involved in, and, as a result, two people are unnecessarily dead.

See, I'm not so sure about being him mentally troubled. He's a 17 year old boy, and 17 year old boys regularly engage in high-risk behavior without thinking it through. Of course, what he did was completely unacceptable, but I think it's possible that he just got overexcited and made a very, very stupid mistake.

[Hammy]

The entire assignment seems like it was planned controversy bait for somebody seeking to play the victim regardless of who they got in trouble for having on the paper.

[Benjamin Frank]

1.Rittenhouse said it was 'his job' to defend the buildings and administer aid to people there.  It was not 'his job:' nobody hired him to do it.  He was engaging in illegal vigilantism and was illegally breaking the curfew to do it.

In what world does the fact that he was volunteering rather than being paid make guarding a shop and helping out as a medic vigilantism?

2.This is something I haven't seen mentioned anywhere else, and it seems such an obvious point to me:  Of all of the vigilantes, rioters and protesters there, he was the only one who killed another person.  Irrespective of whether he acted in self defense or not, nobody else there, in that intense situation, had a problem where they had to kill another person.

The too-obvious answer is that he was the only one who was attacked like that.

It's worth asking why he got into a situation where he was attacked, and the answer to that seems to be that he was the only one who went to act as a medic and help put out fires, which isolated him from his friend back at the shop when the police moved.

Irrespective of anything else, Rittenhouse is clearly a mentally troubled young person with some kind of need to be a hero, or who sees himself as some kind of hero, who was completely in over his head, untrained and ill prepared for what he chose to get himself involved in, and, as a result, two people are unnecessarily dead.

And what's your psychoanalysis of his attackers? Surely more in over their heads, untrained and ill prepared for what they chose to get involved in, than Rittenhouse?

1.In what world does a person 'volunteering' to help in a dangerous situation when nobody asked them to by carrying a weapon and by essentially pretending to be a police officer not make them a vigilante?

2.I don't believe he was the only one acting as a medic or the only one who isolated himself from others on his side.

3.Why would I psychoanalyze anybody else?  Two of them are dead.

[sparkey]

1.In what world does a person 'volunteering' to help in a dangerous situation when nobody asked them to by carrying a weapon and by essentially pretending to be a police officer not make them a vigilante?

What makes you think nobody asked? The defense says that the business owner had requested help, and I imagine that prosecutors would have latched on if Rittenhouse had been trespassing. This makes it seem like you don't know what you're talking about.

2.I don't believe he was the only one acting as a medic or the only one who isolated himself from others on his side.

He was alone when first chased though, no? I don't know of any others attacked like that.

3.Why would I psychoanalyze anybody else?  Two of them are dead.

You're ascribing the deaths directly to his intentions and actions, but there were other actors. Who is blameworthy is important to understand if a self defense claim is valid. Right?

[Benjamin Frank]

1.In what world does a person 'volunteering' to help in a dangerous situation when nobody asked them to by carrying a weapon and by essentially pretending to be a police officer not make them a vigilante?

What makes you think nobody asked? The defense says that the business owner had requested help, and I imagine that prosecutors would have latched on if Rittenhouse had been trespassing. This makes it seem like you don't know what you're talking about.

2.I don't believe he was the only one acting as a medic or the only one who isolated himself from others on his side.

He was alone when first chased though, no? I don't know of any others attacked like that.

3.Why would I psychoanalyze anybody else?  Two of them are dead.

You're ascribing the deaths directly to his intentions and actions, but there were other actors. Who is blameworthy is important to understand if a self defense claim is valid. Right?

1.How could he be trespassing in a public place?

2.That's my point: nobody else was attacked like that, not any of the rioters, protesters or other vigilantes.

3.I've never said he was or wasn't acting in self defense.

[lfromnj]

Someone the previous day was literally attacked for putting out a fire and had a broken jaw, That is serious bodily injury.