Who is Alexander T. Wolf?

Mom, did you know that Alexander T. Wolf went to jail? That was the question my son, who is in pre-k, came home and asked me after school.

Unsure of who Alexander T. Wolf was, I did what the average person in 2021 would do. I put the words, Alexander T Wolf, into Google and hit search.

Up pops youtube videos of the book The TRUE story of the three little pigs.

I remember this book, but I remember reading it through the eyes of a 9-year-old. I was now seeing the book as a mom with an impressionable 5-year-old.

So what do you do when you. I could call the school and raise hell, but then are they going to ostracise my kid? So after weighing all my options (it’s the libra in me), I decided not to say anything for now. He has 3 months left of school, right?

I reached out to mothers in my playgroup for suggestions on how to manage their situation. Surly 4 heads are better than one, right? The responses I received varied, but one mom said that jail was the norm. She didn’t understand why it was such a big deal. Maybe she is right; perhaps we should normalize that for every action, there is a reaction, right? An eye for an eye and all of that. This would be true if we all worked on an even playing field.

But it’s not because this is a system set up so that my black child can fail. Around 1975 the school to prison pipeline was created. This plan was to develop harsher policies in disadvantaged areas that cause a disproportionate number of minority minors and young adults to go to jail. This is due to increasingly more brutal school and municipal policies.

This school situation is not the first time that I noticed the normalization of the jail system. My son was watching a Curious George movie on PBS kids, and he came to me with tears streaming down his face. Curious George is going to jail! He sobbed.

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I went to look at the television. I saw Curious George and the Man with the Yellow Hat in handcuffs. The villain had captured them, and he was going to make them pay. I decided to use this as a teaching moment. Instead of turning off the TV, I made him watch the episode to the end. Curious George and the Man with the Yellow hat went free as we all knew would be the end result, but I was still left wondering why.

Why was a beloved character that I grew up on and even my mother grew up reading being used to introduce my son to the prison system? Why?

A few years ago, I saw a little kindergarten girl on the news with her grandmother saying that she had been arrested. Kindergartener being arrested. Let me pause for a second so that I can sink in.

She was arrested because she threw a temper tantrum, and her mother could not come and pick her up immediately.

My baby is 5, and my baby throws a temper tantrum. My baby could be arrested.

We send our children to school to learn. We expect our children to be loved by their teachers. We hope our children will be protected by their administrators. We do not think that they will traumatize them into submission. On top of being concerned about school shooters, now we have to worry about if our child will be arrested or not.

So what is the solution to this daunting problem? To be honest, I am not sure. I have decided to keep my child at home for several reasons, but his safety is the top priority.

Unfortunately, it has become evident that my black child is not safe in school.