September 23, 2010, - 3:03 pm
Justifiably Angry Father Deserves Kudos, Not Jail
Perhaps you have seen the video, below, of James Willie Jones, the Florida father who boarded a Green Lakes Middle School bus, threatening students who harassed his daughter. He’s come under fire, was arrested for disorderly conduct, and was forced by the politically correct in our country to apologize.
James Willie Jones & His Wife
But, frankly, I think he did the world a service. While he faces disorderly conduct charges, the real disorderly conduct was the behavior of others, which brought him to this point. The man’s 13-year-old daughter has cerebral palsy and was repeatedly bullied by kids on the bus. And the “bullying” wasn’t just verbal. It was physical assault. These kids repeatedly slapped the girl’s head, twisted her ear, threw condoms on her head, and she had to go to the hospital because of stress. The bus driver did nothing (though he has to deal with kids who weren’t parented properly, if at all). And no-one ever disciplined the kids on the bus. They needed to hear this from someone:
“This is my daughter, and I will kill a [expletive] to back her. If anything happens to my daughter I’m going to [expletive] you up and everybody on this [expletive].”
I applaud this father for likely being the only man that ever spoke of meting out any form of discipline to these kids. It’s notable that the father and the kids on the bus are Black. And that’s because in Black America, the vast majority of kids are born to single mothers and never have a father in their lives. This girl is lucky that she not only has a father in her life, but a father that cares enough to risk his freedom to protect her. Sorry, but I think the criticism of this man is unwarranted, and he’s actually doing what a parent whose child is under attack should do–protecting his child.
I’m appalled at the storm of criticism he faces versus the absentee parents who taught their kids–the rest of the kids on the bus–that it’s okay to harass a disabled girl. It’s more of what I’ve been writing about on this site for years–the death of outrage. That the outrage is against this father, and not these kids and their sperm- and womb-donor “parents,” is the true outrage. As I’ve noted before. The outrageous are now the celebrated “outraged.”
Maybe Jones might have used different language, but it seems to me that this lingua franca of the street is the only thing they understand, and they’ve heard it plenty of times before. And since it got to this point, perhaps that language was expressly called for. What if the father had done nothing and “let the authorities handle it”? What if the bullying escalated and she was further physically attacked? Then, it might have been too late. I applaud this father, James Willie Jones. The sad thing is that most people do not.
So, am I right? Do you agree with me that this father was forced to take matters into his own hands? How would you have handled it if this was your daughter? I definitely don’t think he should have apologized. For what? Protecting his family? You never apologize for that.
The kid of a father who would do this to protect his kid is a lucky kid, indeed. What used to be the norm is, sadly, all too uncommon. Most parents don’t care. James Willie Jones does.
And to me, that makes him a candidate for Father of the Year.
Tags: Black, bus, cerebral palsy, daughter, father, Florida, Green Lakes Middle School, James Willie Jones, school bus, single mothers, urban America, video
Amen Debbie: I’m a dad of two girls and if this happened to mine, I’d be the happiest man in jail. The only difference is that I’d take it out on the perpetrators’ fathers. Whatever someone does to my daughter, I do to their father.
ScottG on September 23, 2010 at 4:23 pm