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Sorry for bombarding the flist today. I have a question, and I'm curious what other people think of this situation and what they would do.
Manassas, where Mer and I are living these days, is not a well-to-do area. We have a lot of immigrants, many illegal, and a lot of low income housing where the inhabitants are predominantly African American, Hispanic, or Middle Eastern. Generally speaking, this has little effect on our day to day lives and neither Mer nor I have ever had any encounters that would make us especially fearful or angry with the other townsfolk. In fact, Meredith is enjoying her new school far more than she did her last, which was about as lily white as place as you'll find.
All that being said, the other day one of Meredith's teachers - a white woman - referred to her in class as 'Little White Girl'. This led to the rest of the class laughing and jeering in the way that teenagers do. Meredith held her tongue, but she was pretty freakin' ticked off. I was pretty irritated when I heard about it. Imagine the outcry if a teacher had used that sort of terminology to refer to a child of another race. Do you think that would have slipped by without a shitstorm? No, it wouldn't. But since Meredith is white, it's okay.
Mer and I talked about it, and she wanted me to talk to the school and make sure the teacher was told that this sort of comment was not appropriate. And I'm fine with that, but I wanted to make sure Meredith understood that her schedule would probably have to be switched around because this would likely make her relationship with this teacher openly adversarial. She wasn't really thrilled with that idea, so ultimately we decided she should go and talk to her guidance counselor about it and if she was not happy with the result of that conversation, I'd step in and take things to a higher level - schedule be damned.
Am I being too wimpy on this? Am I making too big a deal out of it? I'm really curious what other people's opinions are.
Manassas, where Mer and I are living these days, is not a well-to-do area. We have a lot of immigrants, many illegal, and a lot of low income housing where the inhabitants are predominantly African American, Hispanic, or Middle Eastern. Generally speaking, this has little effect on our day to day lives and neither Mer nor I have ever had any encounters that would make us especially fearful or angry with the other townsfolk. In fact, Meredith is enjoying her new school far more than she did her last, which was about as lily white as place as you'll find.
All that being said, the other day one of Meredith's teachers - a white woman - referred to her in class as 'Little White Girl'. This led to the rest of the class laughing and jeering in the way that teenagers do. Meredith held her tongue, but she was pretty freakin' ticked off. I was pretty irritated when I heard about it. Imagine the outcry if a teacher had used that sort of terminology to refer to a child of another race. Do you think that would have slipped by without a shitstorm? No, it wouldn't. But since Meredith is white, it's okay.
Mer and I talked about it, and she wanted me to talk to the school and make sure the teacher was told that this sort of comment was not appropriate. And I'm fine with that, but I wanted to make sure Meredith understood that her schedule would probably have to be switched around because this would likely make her relationship with this teacher openly adversarial. She wasn't really thrilled with that idea, so ultimately we decided she should go and talk to her guidance counselor about it and if she was not happy with the result of that conversation, I'd step in and take things to a higher level - schedule be damned.
Am I being too wimpy on this? Am I making too big a deal out of it? I'm really curious what other people's opinions are.
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Have you asked Mer if this is a regular occurance in her class? It's not an excuse, but perhaps that's how the teacher conducts herself with all the students. (I'm thinking of the wondeful scene from 10 Things I Hate About You where the teacher goes off on everyone). Just a thought.
Good luck!