Would you read racist intent into this image under the same circumstances? I'm not criticizing, I'm just curious what triggers the race card feelings in people.
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 ...
Would you read racist intent into this image under the same circumstances? I'm not criticizing, I'm just curious what triggers the race card feelings in people.
Yeah, WTF is that supposed to be? That’s a disgusting tasteless picture for a grade school math quiz.
That’s a stupid picture, and it has no business on a homework sheet.
"It's insensitive, incomprehensible and indefensible!"
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?
Absolutely NOT!!! We can’t have that sort of mindless
acceptance of equality going on, especially in our
indoctrination centers, imagine what that would do to
our diversity. /s
In fact, wouldn't it make sense if we were required to specify our race before posting? Hooray for diversity!
And speaking of diversity, what are the requirements for becoming Hispanic or Latino? Can't we all just opt in? I mean if the only requirement is that you have to have come from a place that was once colonized by Spain? Hell... that makes everyone in places like California or Florida Hispanic.
The notion of racism comes from what is inside the viewer, not the picture itself. The picture is simply an image. You, the viewer, must supply the context in your own mind. You can choose how to view it, through race-colored glasses or not.
That's nice and all, but the original pic had a caption.
“Would you read racist intent into this image under the same circumstances? I’m not criticizing, I’m just curious what triggers the race card feelings in people.”
I wouldn’t, unless it had a questionable caption like “OH MAI GAWD YOUR FRIEND CAN MULTIPLY AND DIVIDE?????”. That would give me pause.
But I don’t find the picture itself offensive or racist at all.
“How would this have been better if the graphic depicted a white toothless hillbilly”
Hillbilly??? It would not have been better. Sir/madam...I am a hillbilly!!!
To me, seems like a legitimate gripe. We’re as much too quick to label something not racist as others are to label it so... Now on the side of balance.
In tears all weekend and not sending the kid back to school until it’s safe??? Idiotic. Race-baiting...
We’re raising a nation of morons and panty-waists. If this is how his mother protects her child now then he won’t be able to go to the bathroom by himself when he grows up. Would that mean he’d be all wee-wee’d up?
I agree. The picture should not have been used.
I’ve seen that picture maybe a hundred times and never thought of it as racist. Not all that funny and a little disturbing, perhaps.
But what it’s doing on a school math worksheet, I have no idea. What a bunch of dummies we have in the field of edumacation.
Suppose it was a picture of a toothless idiot white man.
Would that be racist?
So, no pictures of black men unless they’re handsome with a full set of teeth, but white men can be depicted as toothless idiots?
Or should all pictures of men depict them as handsome, with a full set of teeth, or it’s - racism??
How about pictures of toothless idiot women? Is that sexist?
I don’t get it.
I think the picture is stupid and not suitable for a math paper, but not becuase it’s racist, but because it’s stupid.
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