The Council on American Islamic Relations said the allegation was that the teacher had remarked, “I do not negotiate with terrorists,” when the Palestinian American student asked for a seat change.
Recent U.S. incidents involving children include the attempted drowning of a 3-year-old Palestinian American girl in Texas and the fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy in Illinois.
Other incidents include the stabbing of a Palestinian American man in Texas, the beating of a Muslim man in New York, a violent mob attack on pro-Palestinian protesters in California and the shooting of three Palestinian American students in Vermont.
I don’t know what age you are, but I am 47 and I have not heard that phrase in years.
And you’re right, it’s immaterial whether or not the child gets it. The material part is a teacher insulting a child. Racist, not racist, it is absolutely inappropriate either way.
Have you ever heard that phrase used as an insult? I’ve only ever heard it used as a joking way to say “no.” Especially in cases where the person is being bullheaded about something.
I’ve literally never heard that phrase used in a pejorative way.
Yes. Yes I have. Because I know plenty of Muslims.
Maybe this is purely cultural/regional then. I grew up in an area without a large Muslim population. Perhaps the phrase was used pejoratively elsewhere.
Well this teacher is somewhere with Muslims, so maybe they should figure out how to be a little fucking culturally sensitive with the people in her class.
We don’t even know how old this kid was. It could have been a seven-year-old. What seven-year-old would even understand that was not insulting if you called them a terrorist? They don’t have that sort of ability to reason yet.
I kinda doubt many seven year olds are asking for a seat change?
But, so long as we’re making up scenarios that support our side of the argument, what if it was an otherwise white presenting student, who’s ethnic background the teacher didn’t know, who told the teacher, “change my seat or I’ll beat your ass”?
Without full context, it’s hard to say how deplorable the usage of the phrase truly was. It could have been horrible and racist, sure. I’m not arguing that it couldn’t, or even that it wasn’t. I’m just arguing that it also could also have been a completely normal and understandable turn of phrase that was not intended to be offensive, but unfortunately was.
Then the teacher goes and gets help.
It is never okay for a teacher to insult a student and I have no idea why you and others don’t realize that. Teachers always get disciplined for that if it is found out.
In the scenario I outlined, it’s not an insult. It’s just a common turn of phrase.
For it to even possibly be an insult the teacher would have to know the students ethnic background. It wouldn’t be reasonable to construe it as an insult if the student wasn’t Arab. And a person’s ethnic background isn’t always apparent.
No one is arguing that it’s okay for teachers to insult students. Literally no one has taken that position in this conversation. People have asserted that point many times, but you keep circling back to it, so I’ll emphasize. Of course it’s not okay for teachers to insult students. Literally no one is arguing that, and you’re not listening.
I’m just saying a lot of common words and phrases can be loaded in certain circumstances. If I tell a child that’s hoarding toys, “now now, let’s not be greedy, we need to share with our friends, okay,” that’s fine. If it turns out that kid is Jewish though, it could taken very poorly.
Hell, a kid could tell me about their weekend plans, and I could say, “wow, that’s crazy,” not knowing their mom is in an institution, and the headline could read, “teacher tells student they are mentally unwell, just like their institutionalized mother.” Expecting someone to perfectly avoid all potentially charged language is impossible.
And I’m not saying that the person in the article is blameless. I’m saying the article has very very little in the way of detail, and I’m leary of joining a pitchfork weilding mob over what could have been a simple, though deeply unfortunate, choice of words.
I have no idea why you think it is ever okay to call any student a terrorist for any reason, but I sure as hell hope you aren’t a teacher.