'Drop The McNugget And
Get Your Hands Up!'
''BOY SUSPENDED FOR POINTING CHICKEN FINGER''
''JONESBORO, Ark., Jan. 31 (AP) -- An 8-year-old boy was suspended from school for 3 days after pointing a breaded chicken finger at a teacher and saying, 'Pow, pow, pow.' ''
''The incident apparently violated the Jonesboro School District's zero-tolerance policy against weapons.
''Kelli Kissinger, mother of first-grader Christopher, said she believed the
punishment was too severe.
'' 'I think a chicken strip is something insignificant,' she said. 'It's just a piece of chicken. How could you play like it's a gun?'' '
Okay, now, I know I'm a city boy but I think I do know something about the gross anatomy of a chicken, and for the life of me I have never heard of one with fingers. But even so, it just doesn't sound terribly dangerous. Certainly not as dangerous as, say, a drumstick.
Sigh. All right. You know the drill. Everybody stand up and repeat after me:
AK-47 machine gun -- weapon.
Ham sandwich -- not a weapon.
Switchblade -- weapon.
Library paste -- not a weapon.
Hand grenade -- weapon.
''Hello, Kitty'' barrette -- not a weapon.
Smith & Wesson .38 Special -- weapon.
Chicken finger -- NOT A WEAPON!
For Heaven's sake. How many times must we do the Zero-Tolerance Tango before somebody cries ''enough!''
According to my records, over the past year or two we have seen children suspended and even expelled for bringing to school: A sword-shaped cocktail toothpick. A tiny plastic pistol borrowed from a G.I. Joe doll. Even one kid's own thumb and forefinger, after he used it as a pretend six-shooter in a playground cowboys-and-Indigenous-Peoples game. And that's just barely scratching the surface.
In this latest case, South Elementary School principal Dan Sullivan said the school has zero-tolerance rules because the Jonesboro public wants them. This is, after all, the same town where four students and a teacher were killed and 10 others wounded three years ago when two youths opened fire on a middle school campus.
That was a tragedy. So was Columbine. So it is every time some nut case opens fire on a school, a factory floor, an office, or the White House. And it would be imprudent to ignore the potential of disturbed people bringing their internal demons into our schools and workplaces.
But we can't let prudence give way to hysteria. Neither Columbine nor the Jonesboro tragedies involved chicken parts or cocktail picks, nor did the perps breach school security, or wreak their havoc with ''might-could-possibly-be weapons.'' They were packing serious iron and they came in shooting. No metal detector or backpack search or zero-tolerance rule could have made a whit of a difference in either case.
Suspending a first-grader for playing with his lunch, in hopes of giving potential homicidal maniacs second thoughts, would be laughable -- were it not for the fact that a child is being denied three days of public education for which Arkansas taxpayers have already paid.
Not to mention the ridicule and shame that child will suffer, and never really understand why.
You've got to wonder if turning an uncomprehending 8-year-old into a criminal in the name of ''zero tolerance'' isn't just sowing the seeds of hostility and low self-esteem that could put another Columbine on the map a few years hence.
