I was taught at a very young age that you don't rat people out …

When I was younger, a lesson was taught to me by men far more unhitched than anyone I had ever met before. It was that you don’t snitch; that ratting people out is akin to rape or child abuse. It’s in the top 3 laws of street justice. Don’t diddle kids, treat women with respect, and mind your own goddamn business — it’s pretty simple.

Watching the trending stories yesterday these rules came flooding back to me, the snitching one in particular. Malia Obama, the president’s daughter, was at the peak of the day's most engaging topics. Apparently she was caught smoking weed at a music festival.

An 18-year-old smoking weed at a party … the horror.

Now, I get why news outlets do this kind of thing. It’s easy to toss up a Twitter post and write salacious headlines about the Commander in Chief’s daughter doing something illegal. Then it’s posted for the world to see, and people from different backgrounds are called to arms to choose a side. You’re going to defend her or chastise her. Go left or go right. Yin or Yang.

But nobody wants to talk about an important underlying issue here. These outlets are rolling over on a teenager, a kid. A person who has spent almost half of her awakened life living under the strong thumb of an oppressive Secret Service, locked away behind the white doors of a government controlled home. She’s been held captive, for the most part (albeit in lavish style) for 8 years, yet we think it’s alright for writers to tattle on her for doing nothing wrong?

For wanting to live?

Because smoking weed (if, in fact, it was even weed) isn’t wrong. Hell, the nation should be more up in arms if it was tobacco she was smoking, because we know that shit kills people. We know that shit’s addictive. Her own father struggles with cigarette addiction. If she was smoking cigarettes, fucking ground her ass. But weed? Come on … I think I speak for the nation when I say: Who cares?

The political right has had a heyday with this, too, admonishing the president and first lady for being bad parents. Malia is going to Harvard next year, and will ultimately use her standing to change the world one day, and somehow that's the threshold for bad parenting?

No, telling women they can’t control their bodies is bad parenting. Explaining to a kid that gays can’t love is bad parenting. Instilling the notion that immigrants aren’t people is bad parenting. Allowing a legal adult to chill out for an afternoon is great parenting.

If this whole online debacle were something being handled with the type of justice I was taught, the outcome would be exponentially different.

*shaking my head* Snitches …