Racism By Example

A few days ago, the misses shared a news story with me on the internet with some serious racial implications.  A white teacher at a predominantly white elementary school posted on her Facebook page an image of one of her black students with some rather derogatory comments.  The photo was of a little black girl of about ten years old with the typical kinky hair but pulled straight and beaded up with a variety of colors.  The teacher made comments about the girl as being a dreadful sight to behold on a daily basis.  People who left comments on the teacher’s page compounded the derision with their own insulting comments.  It was all good fun for many of the participants.

According to the article, somebody didn’t care for all the jokes at the little girl’s expense.  At a parent teacher conference, somebody told the parents of the girl about the teacher’s Facebook page.  Instead of confronting the teacher, the parents went to the internet to see what was there for them selves.  Needless to say they were mortified.  They captured screen shots of the page.  After that, they confronted the teacher and the administrators of the predominantly white school.  The administrators were troubled, but they immediately defended the teacher saying that they were not aware that any crime was committed.  The teacher was required to take the page down and little else would be done before an investigation.

The people who left comments about this news article wrote some seriously harsh opinions.  The black family were doing nothing but trying to milk the system.  The teacher had a right to voice her opinion and the parents shouldn’t be trying to force anyone to be politically correct.  The parents should learn to do the girl’s hair.  People left comments that said the little girl was in fact ugly and the teacher’s comments were too kind of anything.  And all kinds of nonsense were made that condemned the parents for being upset that their little girl’s teacher was ridiculing the little girl undercover.

The racism associated with this event was pretty thick.  The teacher was in fact wrong.  She had a prejudice against this little girl that manifested publicly and maliciously.  There might be an argument if this teacher’s behavior was racially motivated.  I do believe it was.  In her defense she said that she didn’t have much experience with little girls with such hairdos.  Essentially she’s trying to claim that she didn’t know kinky hair was a black thing and she didn’t know that ridiculing a little ten year old might be offense to the girl’s parents.  And it’s just a matter of coincidence that the teacher never exhibited her penchant for such insensitive behavior with any of the white kids.  There might be a farfetched excuse for her behavior that doesn’t fall along the lines of blatant racism, but it still does not excuse the behavior of an adult entrusted to teach all children in a setting that is conducive to learning.  The fact that a teacher has such obvious disdain for a student that she boldly posts disparaging comments is a matter of grave concern.

But the racism doesn’t stop there.  The administrators of the school didn’t see the harm of the teacher’s behavior unless it went against the law.  If the teacher went up to the principal and told him to go fuck him or her self they wouldn’t be wringing their hands with an investigation in order to determine if any laws were broken or not.  They would certainly dismiss the teacher for morale turpitude or something else that provides grounds for dismissal.  The fact that they are willing to tolerate such behavior against a little black girl is pretty telling.  But we should we expect from a society that would tolerate the murder of black, fourteen year old Martin Anderson by seven Florida boot camp guards?  Come to think of it, people left some pretty disgusting comments when the story broke about his murder.

But the racism doesn’t stop there.  Many people who read that article were outraged that the black parents would try to vindicate some kind of justice on their daughter’s behalf.  Black people are always trying to play the race card after some white person deals his or her racist deck.  Black people react to white people’s racial discrimination and black people are the ones who are wrong.  Just imagine, people without a dog in this fight are coming out of the woodwork to defend a teacher that they don’t even have a remote relationship with that maligned a ten year old girl, by saying that the parents of that girl don’t have any reason to be outraged.  Does this make sense to anyone who is truly rational?

But unfortunately, the racism doesn’t stop there.  No doubt, people will come here, read the article, and will accuse me of racism because I only see racism when white people make an offhanded comment about a black person.  To many people, I’m the problem in this entire affair because I won’t close my eyes to this travesty as well as many others that continue to weigh on our social collective.  People from both sides of the racial divide will reply with an accusation about how I never say anything when the racism is on the other reverse.  People will say that I only talk about racism when black people are the victims.  But I beg to differ.

Show me an article where a black teacher posts remarks on his or her Facebook page about one of the few white kids in a classroom and I promise I’ll join in the condemnation of such behavior.  And if you can show me where school administrators supported the black teacher because technically speaking no law was broken, I’ll happily post my opinion about people being part of our problem.  Adults who abuse kids and adults who defend people who abuse kids are a sickness that needs to be dealt with.  And speaking of sickness, people who blame black parents for defending their children against such sick behavior are a sickness as well, no matter if the perpetrator is black or white.  Unfortunately, a lot of people only get upset about racism when the victim is a white person who has made the unfortunate mistake of exhibiting behavior that is racist.