>Maybe we grew up in different environments,

These are universal things so it doesn't matter. Personalities are mainly learned.

>I have known plenty of people who disregard anything and everything they are told, and do what they please, whether or not it is legal or socially acceptable, and these mentalities have followed them well into their adult lives. Some people just do not care, and that’s a fact.

Those people were not born that way. Basically all of what we understand about human psychology and development backs this up. Kids don't care because they were raised not to. Often that wasn't the goal but some methods of "discipline" backfire and have opposite effects.

> A child has the free will to either listen to their parent, or not.

And the parents have the power to tip the scales in their favor and teach about consequences and choices. Free will isn't as free as people think. People need and desire things from others.

>I don’t think the parent should be responsible if their child ignored their warnings and instructions.

That depends on the situation IMO.

>But you cannot hold someone responsible for someone else’s actions.

Yes you can. Both morally and legally.

>I live in the most densely populated state in the US, so maybe I’ve just had more exposure to these types of people than others have, but I wouldn’t say that the “I’ll do whatever I want” mentality is rare.

We are in the NJ sub. We live in the same state.

>but I wouldn’t say that the “I’ll do whatever I want” mentality is rare.

Your exposure to those types of people doesn't tell you anything about their home life and upbringing. Therapy and counseling can help some of these people unlearn behaviors that were taught in childhood via poor negative or positive reinforcement. If you can learn something it was probably learned to begin with.

You will find no reputable psychologists that say that some people are just bad beyond edge cases like psychopaths and sociopaths. Empathy and kindness are skills that are taught and nurtured.

>I grew up and knew people who literally were pieces of shit regardless of how their parents tried to correct their behavior and instill values and morals in them. Some people are just shitty people; sometimes it’s their upbringing, sometimes, it’s just their personalities.

Those kinds of people are a very very very small percentage of the population. We are talking about psychopaths and sociopaths. Those are exceptions not the rule. Everything else is poor upbringing (which is sometimes out of the parents control due to other factors). Personalities are developed. Humans are social animals that look to others to see how to behave. Humans raised without other humans aren't human at all and never learn to be. There are some genetic components to this but not to the degree that parents should be let off the hook (except for those exceptions).

The way kids were in the past doesn't excuse new resources and information. Kids are now being taught emotional regulation and coping skills, kindness, etc from early ages now.

And if your kid is still awful then you have a duty to protect others from them as best you can. If a kid is a psychopath or sociopath and they don't act then it's still on the parents.

>That being said, at 14 you know right from wrong

Yes, they know right from wrong. But teenagers don't have completely formed brains, understanding of consequences and don't always think rationally and more easily succumb to groupthink. So kids are more mature than others. They aren't blameless by any means but IMO the people with more blame are being punished less or not at all.

I would be too but I would be out for the blood of those responsible for the kids behavior. I consider parents and guardians (which would be the school) to be more responsible than teenagers.

If this was a one time thing then I would agree with you but this was a sustained thing and the adults didn't step up to stop it.

Kids are kids and they need more help than punishment. These kids have low emotional IQs. That can be helped and fixed in most cases. They deserve some punishment but these charges seem more like grandstanding than actual solutions, IMO. IMO they are the least responsible party because they are kids.

The school officials should be punished both legally and civilly. Some reports have stated that bullying had gone on for years. If they were aware then their negligence allowed for this. As the adults in charge of where some of this bullying took place they could have stopped some of it.

If the bullies' parents were aware (and if they weren't then it all falls on the school) then they should be charged too. Raise shitty kids and you should be responsible if there was something you could have done to correct their behavior. If someone told me my kid was a bully then we would go hard into therapy, anger management, conflict resolution, and I would monitor their online accounts until I could trust them to act right.

That's also a somewhat accurate way to describe the situation. But I think many people regardless of color might have a tendency to view black kids as older if they were raised in the western world.

Plus black kids tend to enter puberty slightly earlier than their white peers which isn't about perception at all.

In the past people literally aged faster due to diet, dental care, and UV protection. Fashion plays a role too.

I think when compared to white kids; which is how white people are generally basing their comparisons due to their life experiences, black kids have a tendency to look older once they enter puberty.

I can't figure out what issue you have with my initial statement unless you were reading it with a negative voice which doesn't make sense to me with the message and links provided. I guess I could have offered more explanation but I felt the provided links did that better than I could. If you think of something please let me know because I honestly don't get your issue.

What would you have preferred?

>Sounds like a blanket statement

I said somewhat common. I don't have evidence of this beyond my experience being black and my wife being a highschool teacher in a majority black school. In my estimation it is more common for black kids to look older and this is echoed by the research I have read on the subject.

>importantly, an excuse for racism and not allowing black kids to be kids.

It's a partial explanation. Give people pictures of pubescent black kids and in general they will guess older ages for the black kids than similarly aged white kids. This is part of why black kids are charged as adults more often. IMO the only way to fix this is to have a hard cutoff. UNder 18 and kids can't be charged as adults with no exceptions.

Some of what racism is is built into people. Good people identify and account for those thoughts. Bad people either ignore them or give into them. Human beings are programmed to see patterns (whether or not they are there) and make shortcuts based on them. Think social optical illusions.

>Black people aren’t inherently older looking

Except experimentally it seems that black kids are seen as older by white people. And black kids tend to enter puberty slightly earlier than white kids.

> In fact it’s quite normal for black people, especially black women, to maintain their youthful imagine/skin well into adulthood.

Yes, my mother won't shut the fuck up about how young she looks. That's not the age nor the phenomenon I was referring to.

This is a somewhat common trait in black people and it has significant consequences when it comes to treatment by the criminal justice system.

https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2014/03/black-boys-older

https://www.npr.org/2014/03/19/291405871/consequences-when-african-american-boys-are-seen-as-older

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/adults-thinks-black-girls-are-older-than-they-are-and-it-matters/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6481933/