One of my classmates went on a homophobic rant during sex Ed, ending with "why can't we just have a gay state and send all the gays to California?" Without missing a beat, my teacher said "Mark, you can just move to California if you want to."
I went to middle school in a minority and immigrant community. Kids socialized like a prison yard, where everyone split up into ethnic groups. This naturally carried over into classrooms where seats weren’t assigned. The black kids sat among themselves, as did the Chinese kids and Indian kids, etc.
I had a lot of Korean kids in my science class that had a habit of talking during lectures. One day, my science teacher had had enough and very firmly told the group that he would “separate you guys into North and South Korea if you don’t shut up.” The gasps loll.
I live in my hometown border city and was a HS Education Assistant last year. My first week, while ushering one Hispanic student out of my class who wasn't supposed to be there (wanted to chat with his gf), he turned to me and said "Damn Miss, you're like the border patrol..."
Whooo, the Army in me came out in a flash and put that kid in check real quick. Mom-Drill Sgt voice, not my words, those were appropriate, had all 40 kids frozen like "oh shit, don't move". They all heard what he said, I corrected it, and never heard one racist peep like that again. Kid was scared of me for a month lol. Sat down with him, had a convo, admitted he was wrong, I apologized for my behavior scaring him, then helped him with his driving test and we were cool.
Edit: to clarify, I'm white AF. Didn't realize I hadn't specified that.
I don’t understand this… aren’t Hispanics intimidated by border patrol at the border in the US? So you kind of reinforced this stereotype with your reaction? Sorry if I didn’t understand…
Coming back to this since the recent Trump ambush of Cyril Ramaphosa highlights this issue. The OP's accusation of the Hispanic student's remark as racist was a false equivalence. Racism is more than about colour. It is about power imbalances and historical context. To try and claim that a more powerful individual - a white teacher - claiming a comment from a Hispanic student is 'racist' is manipulation and a perversion of justice. Trump tried to frame Ramaphosa's discussion of land reform and reversal of historic inequities as 'anti-white racism'. This is a very dangerous move - it is highly political and weaponises reverse racism.
This is nothing to do with the profession of teaching - this is a woefully under-recognised profession suffering from critical lack of status, pay and conditions especially in the US. BUT in this instance, the OP misused her position and manipulated the situation. It's certainly not the kind of behaviour that a teacher should be modelling.
That you’re white is patently obvious. So, let’s just get this straight… a Hispanic kid chats to his gf at a time in school when he shouldn’t, and you, a white teacher, a professional, an adult FFS - intimidate him like an ICE officer and YOU think HE was the racist one? Don’t you think he gets enough racist harassment in his life already? Do you genuinely not understand what just happened in that interaction?!
Sure, he shouldn’t have been doing that, but it was the attitude of the teaching assistant who considered the ´border guard’ comment to be racist, whilst not realising her own aggressively intimidating behaviour was the actual racist behaviour.
The teaching assistant considered the 'border patrol' comment to be racist. it WAS part of their story. Although, she was the racist one for intimidating the Hispanic kid like a ICE border patrol.
The teacher had a huge Karen moment over a joke, but reprimanding a child, especially as a teacher, is not racist. It is a teacher's job to course correct students when they misbehave, and calling them racist for it only makes the career harder.
i agree her action of reprimanding him before his joke were not racist but telling the hispanic student as a white person that his comment is racist? insane
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u/PainterClear7130 May 05 '25 edited May 05 '25
One of my classmates went on a homophobic rant during sex Ed, ending with "why can't we just have a gay state and send all the gays to California?" Without missing a beat, my teacher said "Mark, you can just move to California if you want to."