What’s All This Then!

While in the Boy Scouts, I learned a lot of different skills — social ones of courtesy and responsibility, survival ones such as fire building and knot tying. But our scout masters never told us that we could be get in trouble for having this knowledge. If we acted irresponsibly, well, yes, of course we would be punished. But simply having knowledge isn’t a punishable offense. Or at least I thought so until I read about a boy scout being kicked out of school for what he knew.

That’s what happened to scout Travis Grigsby of Missouri’s Lee’s Summit West High School. As a member of the drum line, his team mates were discussing how to best tie down the drum equipment when the subject of tying nooses came up. Although Travis admitted to knowing how to, he responsibly said that he wouldn’t because “you can get in trouble for that.” No truer words were spoken. Later, a black student told a teacher that he was offended by the use of that n-word: noose. As a result, the school district then suspended Travis for 10 days.

You know how a gun can be used beneficially in defending your life or in an unjust fashion to rob someone of theirs. A string twisted about itself can be used productively or wrongly. Words have the same power — to right wrongs or to create problems where none existed. So I wonder which has been more of a noose-ence in this Kansas City school system: a knowledgeable scout, a thin-skinned person, or misguided members on a school district board? Do you think that this is the last of this type of grade school silliness? A frayed knot, I mean, afraid not.

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