Posted on 11/19/2009 5:32:28 AM PST by SolidWood
When she was helping her son with his homework Saturday night, a Central Bucks mother noticed something that surprised and shocked her.
"I couldn't understand what I was looking at," said the woman, whose identity the newspaper has agreed not to disclose.
It was a work sheet called "Solving Equations using Multiplication and Division!" and it featured a photo of a black man wearing a straw hat, shirt and suspenders, with his mostly toothless mouth wide open. As if to underscore the man's stupidity, at the bottom of the picture was written, "No wai!!!"
The mother learned that her son, the only black student in his eighth-grade pre-algebra class at Lenape Middle School, was teased by another student when the assignment was distributed.
"One of the kids in the classroom turned around and said, 'Is that your father?' " she said.
"We are highly insulted and offended. We sent him to school to learn pre-algebra. He should be protected from this stuff, not have it thrown in his face...He gets enough (racial slurs) and negativity from the kids. To have the teacher encourage it?"
[...]
The boy's mother said she spent much of the weekend angry and in tears.
"It's very stressful to be an African-American in the community and you want to fit in and you want to embrace all of the things Central Bucks offers you," she said. "Who's protecting us here?"
Monday night, after meeting with the boy's family, NAACP Bucks County President John Jordan issued a written statement denouncing the events.
[...]
She plans to keep her son home from school until she feels as though it's safe to send him again.
(Excerpt) Read more at phillyburbs.com ...
So, a picture of a man, in the attempt of humor is racist if the man is black? If this were a white man, why that must be hilarious, right?
I’m horribly offended - I too will spend the entire weekend crying my widdle eyes out. The ONLY thing that will wipe the tears from my eyes will be $$$$$, I want dat Obama Money. He’s got a stash, and he be givin’ it away . Dats why we voted for him. We luv Obama. < /sarcasm>
Right on!
This is an outrage. I can’t believe the White parents weren’t outraged.
This is straight out of the slave days ridicule of Blacks.
agreed.........this is a legitimate complaint, and should be treated as such...but with all the BS complaints out there, this will just be filed as just another boy cries wolf story..
Personally I think the teacher was mocking ignorance and I'm just not that offended by it.
Racism aside, that picture did not enhance the lesson. It detracted. Teacher needs help.
The caption to that pic had this "OH MAI GAWD YOUR FRIEND CAN MULTIPLY AND DIVIDE?????".
Pretty stereotypical stuff. Now the only question you really have to ask yourself is this. If you were a teacher and there was one black student in your class, would you have used the pic?
I didn't think so.
This was obviously a lame joke by the teacher. I’ve seen that pic before and it’s disgusting. Racist? no - Absolutely inappropriate? yes, but not because of the race of the man, but because of the content of the photo.
It’s not racist and I believe the mother is milking this for the publicity.
It is still a stupid picture that shouldn’t have been in the assignment.
It may be racist if there was racist INTENT on the part
of the teacher. Otherwise it shows startling bad taste.
Or, perhaps the teacher and her class is so integrated
in diversity that the thought never crossed her mind
and was just a funny picture, I seem to remember
Joe E. Brown doing that wide mouth bit and no one
even said it was in bad taste much less racist,
but of course anything tasteless about “white” folk
can’t BE racist because only “whites” are racists.
I side with the mother, but playing the drama queen
was not the way to deal with this. Maybe she was trying
for a spot on “Drama Queen for a Day”.
I note, WITH PRIDE AND IRONY, that this is NOT IN THE SOUTH!.......
I agree with you to a point, but it is still sheer stupidity to put something like this on a school assignment regardless.
i hope he learns what she intends for him to learn from Steve Wilkos.
Steve Wilkos advocates proper spelling and capitalization.
The teacher is just an ignorant jerk and used poor judgment. The mother should have just conveyed that sentiment to her son, although he probably realizes it already.
If there was racist INTENT, it’s pretty impossible to show and there’s too much assuming going on as it is today.
As far as the “startling bad taste” charge that too is pretty subjective especially in the world we subject children to these days. Bad taste is everywhere and some call it genius. You’ll never be able to eliminate “bad taste” anywhere.
And wouldn’t it be a GOOD thing if it didn’t cross the teacher’s mind that someone would flip out and deem a picture of an ignorant toothless person who happens to be black as racist? Aren’t we falling into the trap of lowered expectations if we must run everything we do or say through a racial filter lest someone, somewhere might be offended?
Very cool people.
;-/
Hard to believe that is actually in school material. It should be removed.
Does race have to color every single thing we do?
Isn't it possible that the guy saw a picture and thought it applied to his situation, and didn't think about race in the slightest?
I was guilty of the same thing a few months back - in a thread on Michelle O'bama, I posted a celebrity-morph picture where the pic was morphed into a chimp face. The cry of racism was immediate and I asked to have it pulled. It didn't dawn on me that anyone would interpret it that way, but that's what happened.
The fact is that people don't think about race nearly as much as the victims imagine. The idea that it's not "safe to go back to school" is just ridiculous.
I think this was clumsiness, not malice.
I am wondering if the teacher or publishers put it there. ( I will now go on to read the whole article.)
By the way, Saxon Math books have **no** photos whatsoever. NONE! Why are these educators trying to be “cute” about mathematics?
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