Story here. It seems one of young Mr. Lee’s teachers gave the class a creative writing project with specific instructions to “be creative; there will be no judgement and no censorship”. Except by “no judgement” they actually meant “judgement by overly-paranoid school officials and the legal system”, and by “no censorship” they actually meant “you’d better not write anything that makes us uncomfortable” because when Lee wrote a violent essay they forwarded it to the police.
Now Allen Lee is facing two misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct which may result in fines and jail time, he may not be allowed to return to school, and the Marines have released him from his enlistment contract. That’s right, they found a student in the United States willing to serve his country and now he can’t because his school officials jumped from “Asian student wrote a violent essay in response to anything-goes instructions from his teacher” to “OMG HE’S GONNA KILL US ALL” from a standing start.
Does this school have no guidance counsellors? Was there no one in the wide spectrum of authority figures who could have talked to the kid before going to such great lengths to fuck up his life for the crime of doing his homework?
You know what’s surprisingly effective at neutering the effect of terror? Stop being terrified. Don’t flip out just because there’s a brown man on the plane or because there’s an Asian kid with a loaded essay in the school. Seriously.
Errr, you did read some of the contents of the essay, right?
I’m not sure charging him with a criminal offense is appropriate, but this particular passage is…interesting. Murdering people and having sex with their dead bodies is a touch more creative than most folks are comfortable with. Perhaps Mr. Lee should have been a little more judicious in his essay topic selection.
From what I’ve read, the students were told – or maybe this is just Lee’s version – not to censor themselves. I don’t think he made up the topic by himself. So far, this looks like a big overreaction.
You know, a little context here would be helpful. This snippet was taken because of the sensational nature of it. But without the story around it, it is meaningless.
With all due respect, bull and shit. Mr. Lee was told “anything goes”. Mr. Lee was told “no judgement, no censorship”. Mr. Lee was lied to, and has now been charged by the state’s attorney for expressing himself as he was instructed.
He didn’t shout fire in a crowded theatre, and he didn’t libel anyone. The essay segment quoted doesn’t even threaten anyone, except for the people in his freakin’ dreams.
Yeah, I’m going with the “wry” assessment on that one too. “Well, not really, but it would be funny if I did”? That’s enough ironic detachment to un-cock the panic trigger, as far as I’m concerned.
I also think that the restraint of the phrase “had sex with” in this context comes across as rather amusingly prudish. Look, as D. H. Lawrence always remarked, when you violate the imaginary corpses of imaginary murder victims in a dream, you have to brutally “fuck” them or “rape” them, you don’t tamely “have sex with” them.
Is it any wonder why kids today don’t have respect for authority? I mean, I don’t blame them when authority figures promise one thing and then do the complete opposite.
Of course now schools will use creative writings to determine a students mental health. It has been going on for a long time, but it always seems to peek after a major shooting incident.
Yeah, and Chuck Palahniuk too–guy’s a menace! Oh, and Andrew Vachss had better watch out somebody doesn’t take him to a shrink because that eyepatch is a dead giveaway that he’s CRAAAAZY especially with all that violence he writes about.