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.
Yes I agree with that. The mother is also "acting stupidly".
It is possible the teacher made an error but I doubt it. The teacher should have known it was insensitive. She is a teacher, they deal with this stuff all of the time. This picture fits the stereotypical mold of an uneducated black man with poor hygiene. Add to that a facial expression pretty close to an ape and tack on a caption ridiculing black speech.
To me it's obvious, and I am not one of those racially sensitive folks but I am sensitive to the feelings of a young child.