u235

A girl in the local middle school seems to have a problem with her ability to control her outbursts. Specifically on or before any ethnic holiday she manages to yell out some racial slur, in school, in class and in front of her peers. Clearly the behavior has persisted, in part because she's not being disciplined. On the other hand her classmates who are appalled by the behavior, ones who broke out with spontaneous, embarrassed laughter, they were the ones yanked out of class and yelled at.

Boggles the mind doesn't it?

The one event I heard about in detail involved Martin Luther King day. Apparently the girl stood up in class (I don't know if this was prompted by an inquiry or not) and said "We don't celebrate that in MY house because black people are n***ers." As I mentioned a few kids burst out laughing. Moments later a teacher hauled them out into the hall to berate them for being insensitive and immature. Huh? Pardon me? Who the hell wouldn't react like that in this day and age? I know I would. Of course I'd go a step further with a comment like "So what cave did your family crawl out of this morning?" or "Yah, and when you finally get your knuckles off the ground give us a call..."

I'm not saying people aren't entitled to their opinions, but they're not entitled to voice them in an unvarnished manner in certain public settings. School, being what it is, requires that all people be on their best behavior. What your family says and does at home is their business, and no one else's UNLESS you decide to put it on display. And if that display offends someone then it needs to be addressed. The real problem is that the school is more inclined to oppress children and parents who have shown themselves willing to toe the common line. They are much less inclined to take on the challenge when the people involved are clearly aggressive.

To simplify things: the school would rather everyone "just get along" even if the cost is on the kids who aren't the ones causing the trouble in the first place. They're insanely afraid of lawsuits, and the odds are higher that some racist fuckhead will sue because their child's "right of expression" was "repressed" because they just repeated what they heard at home. Of course the parent is just using the child to create a forum for them to spread their aggression, but racial extremists don't tend to be the most nurturing people on earth. On the other hand if Joe and Jane Average were to back their child up and take the school to task for enabling the repeat offender, maybe the school would think twice about its strategy.

It's not ok for this girl to participate in class and create deliberate (and probably staged) disruptions on a regular basis. The school administration needs to grow a spine and discipline both the kid and her parents. Good thing it didn't happen to my kid, because trust me, I wouldn't let it go by.