Questioning the WHS student's character

I was amazed at how the friends of this student came to his defense. His character has nothing to do with anything other than he made an obviously bad choice on Monday. The judge is not going to look at the fact that he is a nice student or that he opened the door for others, he is going to see a troubled teen who took weapons to school that could have possibly hurt others. Parents, we need to wise up and reteach our children what character is and how to look for it and how to recognize when someone is not representative of the character we want our children to have.

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It's Human Nature
Basmati's picture
Submitted by Basmati on Wed, 08/09/2006 - 3:08pm.

I think a great many of you are missing a salient point: it’s human nature to come to the defense of your friends.

Consider this example: Suppose I were to make a post about how incredibly ugly Git Real’s wife is. A number of you folks here would automatically come to Git Real’s defense here, regardless of the fact that most of you have never seen her much less met her. The perceived “threat” causes a kneejerk defensive measure.

There is a group here who will use any tragedy as an excuse to mount their soapbox and pontificate. I call them the “Fact Free Four”: Git Real, PTC Guy, idontknow and skyspy. They’ll use anything that occurs in Fayette to advance their agendas, regardless of whether or not all the facts are known. (PTC Guy, of course, is a special case..he makes up “facts” to fit his preconceived positions).

    Mother cited (“arrested” in Munfordspeak) for her kid not going to school? Time to excoriate lower socioeconomic class minority single mothers! Facts be damned!

    Teenager shot to death at a party? Hey, he liked rap gansta music so he “deserved” it! (Git Real set himself apart from the crowd here: he verbally raped the victim’s corpse for five consecutive days then lectured the victim’s father about his “right” to speak his mind)

    Robbery at Fayette Pavillion? Cue the oh-so-thinly veiled racial innuendos. Pity that Cal won’t allow them to use the “N word” in their posts….you know how badly they want to.

    The latest came yesterday when sniperboi was arrested at school. Skyspy, trying to make a name for himself, was so over the top in his denunciation of ALL Peachtree City teens that even uberwingnut ArmyMAJRetd took issue with his broad brush splatters.

It surprises and saddens me how absolutely “tone deaf” a great many of the posters on this site seem to be. They seem genuinely baffled when people push back against their sweeping overbroad generalizations.


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Student's Character
Submitted by pandora on Wed, 08/09/2006 - 6:27am.

Good points. What a lot of posters, including some of the student's peers, seem to overlook is that a person's actions are a direct manifestation of their true character. The posters who do not know Robin still see his actions, and can draw some valid conclusions.

BTW, Bostonian, thanks for starting a new blog on this. It gets incredibly frustratinng trying to keep track of new posts once the conversations run onto a second or third page.

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How do you "see"?
Basketball Mom's picture
Submitted by Basketball Mom on Wed, 08/09/2006 - 3:38pm.

Pandora,

You stated: "The posters who do not know Robin still see his actions". I think what the posters see is a bunch of media hype and irresponsible statements made by the FC Sheriff's Dept. Who gave them the right to publically PROFILE Robin Kittrell? The facts were better stated by the FCBOE offical as to what Rob's intent was would be "purely speculation". End of comment. What is happening here is that people are making assumptions and publically trying Rob in the media. Why can't we just let the judicial system do it's job? Or even better, why didn't anyone (FCBOE/WHS Admin/FCSD) think to at least relay this "tip" to Rob's parents so that if there was any "issues" (as one WHS student stated) the PARENTS could and would DO SOMETHING and get Rob help? And if Rob was such a threat, why was he even allowed in the doors of WHS and into his 1st period class?

Our kids take DARE in 5th grade. They get diversity training. The schools teach them "life skills" and how to take the SAT and now the Sheriff's department is pleading to the students to report possible threats. Why? So they can sit on it for months or be REACTIVE rather than PROACTIVE? That kind of action gets them in front of a camera, on the news and in print making speculatory statements about a teen....ummm, they have a term for that: PROFILING!

I am grateful that my son came home safely and that nothing actually happened that first day of school. My greatest hope is that Rob gets a fair and unbiased judicial trial or hearing, one not tainted with media hype and irresponsible opinions by our County Sheriff's Department.

My heartfelt thoughts and prayers go out to the Kittrell family. Please give them some privacy and allow justice to be blind, not media or politically driven.


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BBall Mom - Seeing Actions
Submitted by pandora on Wed, 08/09/2006 - 8:35pm.

First, you have my wholehearted agreement with the hope that Robin gets a fair trial, and I am also grateful everyone came home safely.

I also don't really see a refutation of my assertion that actions reveal character. And I'm not talking about the media "hype" - I will use no adjectives and it still speaks volumes: a young man brought two rifles, two handguns, a sword, a knife, and 25 sets of flex cuffs onto a school campus. This action warrants a reaction far greater than telling his parents and letting them handle it. It is not a case of poor judgement or making a mistake. It is a complete break from acceptable or legal behavior.

I think, if you read through the huge volume of posts on this topic, you will see I haven't tried to analyze Robin's intent or his mental status. But there are a lot of classmates posting heartfelt support of their friend. Those young people need to know that Robin's choices and actions, just like their own, have consequences. They judge Robin based on the kind and good actions they have seen, but the weapons issue, and such a volume of them, is an action that also needs to be considered beyond their chorus of "he wouldn't have done anything with them."

Even if that assertion is 100% correct, which I do not believe, someone less "polite" could have gained access to them and used them. Just having them at the school was criminally negligent at best. I can understand every parent in town being incredibly upset about this act, and their desire to have the person who committed it be permanently removed as a potential threat to their children.

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