Michael Hosinski assaults the unidentified student. | Source: @ABC7 / Twitter.com/ABC7
The power of white privilege is truly a force to behold.
Last Thursday, a teacher at an Indiana high school was arrested after surveillance video showed him slapping and manhandling a student because the student was wearing a hoodie on school grounds. So, obviously, the teacher was promptly fired because such a reprehensible and abusive act committed against a minor by an adult requires an appropriate response from the school and no other action would suffice, right? Wrong.
You see, we forgot to calculate white privilege into the equation in order to determine the probability that a white “educator” might be treated leniently and allowed to retire rather than receive a well-deserved pink slip.
According to ABC 7, 61-year-old Michael Hosinski was granted early retirement following a Feb. 25 incident at Jimtown High School in Elkhart, Indiana. Video footage shows Hosinski jetting down a hallway while chasing after a student, who he catches up with, grabs by the backpack, hits in the face and slams into a wall.
A now-retired Indiana high school teacher was arrested after video showed him hitting a student during a confrontation over wearing a hooded sweatshirt on school grounds, officials said. https://t.co/bzeQKrBDQT pic.twitter.com/BkxVh2qVb4
— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) March 4, 2022
Hosinski then grabs the student—who appears to be holding their head in pain—by the arm and starts to pull the student down the hallway. But the student falls to the ground and another adult appears to come to their aid while Hosinski walks away like he didn’t just abuse a teenager.
“After a police investigation, Hosinski was preliminarily charged with battery, which is a felony, the Elkhart County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release posted to Facebook Thursday evening,” ABC reported. “A request for formal charges has been submitted, the sheriff’s office said.”
According to ABC, the school has a policy against hoodies on school grounds except on special days, and there was some sort of verbal confrontation between the student and teacher that preceded the incident. Now, besides the fact that anti-hoodie policies are racist because they only exist due to the stigma of things Black people make stylish, Hosinski’s “punishment” by the school doesn’t mean much. He was already reportedly set to retire as a World Civilization and Sociology teacher in June. In fact, he’s the one who requested that the Baugo Community School Board grant him early retirement. So the man caught beating a student wasn’t really punished at all, he just had his request granted.
Three days after the incident in which he brutalized a child, the school board unanimously approved the early retirement request.
The power of whiteness, I tell ya.
SEE ALSO:
Video Shows Racist Texas Student Assaulting Black Teacher