Thread by @DrScottHadland

Pediatrician here. The acquittal of #KyleRittenhouse exemplifies all the ways America is messing up teen boys & perpetuating gun culture, while meanwhile terrorizing youth of color. 🧵1/

I’m a doc for plenty of 17-year-olds and, like everyone else, can’t help but notice that Rittenhouse got a pass for murder while #TamirRice & #TrayvonMartin & countless other teen boys of color (often much younger) are killed (often by police) in the absence of a crime. 2/

Every last one of these kids is a son, brother, grandkid, who is violently robbed of a future and whose families will struggle with grief and trauma for the rest of their lives. 3/

But back to Rittenhouse. Teen boys’ brains are still developing. Their reward centers (eg, nucleus accumbens), which drive risk taking, are fully developed, but parts of their brains responsible for planning & executive functioning (eg, prefrontal cortex) are not developed. 4/

So teens like Rittenhouse can easily fall for the allure of toting AR-style rifles, paramilitarism — the kind of deceptively exciting vigilante nonsense they see from the adults role-modeling around them. 5/

Rittenhouse is not a victim though. We expect teens to live within limits & expectations. 17-year-olds understand rules meant to keep us safe in society. Eg, no drinking & driving. He deliberately traveled across state lines with a load semi-automatic AR-style weapon. 6/

So Rittenhouse should have been punished. Teens understand rules & consequences. So even though they are vulnerable to the bullshit gun culture & racism that adults role model to them, they need to be held accountable for their actions in the eyes of the law. 7/

Not punishing Rittenhouse will show other teen boys that threatening peaceful protesters with guns (and worse, shooting them) comes without consequences. Mark my words: Another teen will do this again. 8/

To be sure, some of you will say, well, when we’re locking kids of color up for drug use and other minor offenses, we’re teaching them limits.

No. What we do to teens of color is terrorize them. 9/

Kids of color in many American cities are told not to go out at night, to avoid the police, to not wear hoodies (I could keep going). Many of these kids are my patients. And they’re scared. 10/

And this is another thing about the developing brain. The trauma it experiences—like when kids of color are afraid to walk their own streets at night, and when they see white supremacy thrive unchecked—is locked in when it occurs during key developmental years. 11/

In other words, the terrorizing and traumatization of kids of color caused by racism, gun violence, distrust of the police, and the murder of innocent teens at the hands of police & private citizens — this is indelibly burned into the developing teen brain. It last forever. 12/

I will add that the disproportionate incarceration and punishment of teen boys of color is often in response to NONVIOLENT (often drug-related) offenses for which imprisonment is ineffective & it causes irreparable harm to kids, families & communities. 13/

We adults keep effing up the next generation. #KyleRittenhouse should have been punished. He murdered 2 people, injured a 3rd. A jury of adults should have held him to the grave consequences of his actions. 14/

Boys across America have been sent a message. Vigilante justice—even when you’re underage & carrying a highly lethal weapon—is a welcome silencer of protest, but only if you’re white. And teens of color will live on in fear, knowing the adults in the room failed them. 15/15