Boy Scouts Teach Kids More Than How to Build a Fire

Jorge Rivas

Boy Scouts Teach Kids More Than How to Build a Fire

What!?

I just can’t even begin to figure out what to say about this week’s NY Times story that looked at a Southern California affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that is training “thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence.”

I thought that the Boy Scouts were supposed to teach kids how to start a fire with sticks and give them survival skills just in case they ever got lost in the woods. But not in Imperial County, California. The goal with this local Explorers group is to “create more agents” said April McKee, a senior Border Patrol agent and mentor of one of the training sessions.

You have to look through the slideshow on the NY Times site. The majority of the kids in this program are Latino and they’re being indoctrinated by racialized and criminalizing training scenarios. It’s upsetting. I’ll leave you with one of the most disturbing lines from the article.

“One role-player wore traditional Arab dress. “If we’re looking at 9/11 and what a Middle Eastern terrorist would be like,” he said, “then maybe your role-player would look like that.

Posted at 10:16 AM, May 15, 2009 in Permalink | View Comments

Comments

Creepy. It almost looks like they're trying to prove their loyalty by showing they are willing to kill other brown people. Yikes.

I definitely don't like this uber-macho police state stuff. If it keep turning out that way, I gotta say that I would rather have them with the weapons.

I think white agents are, on average, much more likely to get triggy happy on brown people.

ROFL!!!

They probably already started construction on a cloning facility like Star Wars Ep.II. Seriously, its a hit or miss with this notion. I'd advocate more along the lines of a Jr.ROTC program.