Week 5 - Anna Le, sect. 4

This week's readings made me realize that America has always been an imperialist country and that it's force has been permeated in our everyday society. When I moved to a more affluent neighborhood, our schools had on-campus police officers and security. At the time, it was perplexing to me that an affluent and much safer school had so much security patrolling our high school. We had three to five campus securities constantly patrolling our campus in their golf carts, and one police officer guarding the halls, but I always wondered what danger were they protecting us from? Our students rarely broke out in violent fights. Was this because they were merely afraid of school shooters or that we were going to play hooky and skip school? Why wasn't the poorer schools who had gang affiliations and fights in the next town over not utilizing police officers or campus securities? The officers who carried guns and the securities with their walkie-talkies reminded the students, and me, to not act out. Their mere presence was enough for students to not act out. I thought it was somewhat of a norm, to have police on campus at all times, seemingly with the perception of protecting us. I realized now that its roots go back to America's imperialistic culture. The extent to this goes further when we see Universities utilizing brute force against their students, to keep them in check, by pepper spraying them or calling up swat teams to "control" peaceful protesters. Perhaps my high school was doing the same. Maybe we are misguided to believe that these powers that be are here to protect us.

Question: 

• Has it only been recently that Universities are using military tactics to silent its students and protesters? (i.e. getting swat teams, using pepper spray, and having military grade tanks) 
• Is America the only country that adopted militarization practices in its education system?

References

• Chatterjee, P., Maira, S. (2014). The Imperial University; Race, War, and the Nation-State. 
• Hamamoto, D. (2003). Empire of Death and the Plague of Civil Violence.
• Davis, J. (n.d.). [Police in suburban school]. Retrieved from https://c.o0bg.com/rf/image_960w/Boston/2011-2020/2014/03/28/BostonGlobe.com/Regional/Images/davis_hscop2_nowk.jpg