well said #90 you are not a bad person or a racist just a realist and as far as #92 you are just a libataed and a coolaide drinker so why not go and drink your coolaid and let the adults talk and maybe for a change try to think for your self instead of being told what to think

Oh Charles,
I remember people telling my brother and I that our hair smelled weird. It was only other students though. I would have died if it was a teacher. We were the only black kids in our elementary school.

Bad times...

Having come up white in Kentucky, I am amazed over and over again by the reluctance of NW white people to allow that racism may be a factor in various situations "even here."

@98

Yes, and that's a social judgment, not an argument. Just because you and ten of your friends agree that certain conduct is the moral equivalent of racism doesn't meant that the person who engaged in that conduct had racist intent, or that they should have anticipated that you would interpret their conduct as racist.

Consensus doesn't make you right, it just makes you powerful.

It's interesting to me that you seem to have so much trouble with that distinction.

i am a person of color. i was a sociology major at a liberal arts college known for its social progressiveness. i have lead anti-oppression trainings for places i've worked and for nonprofits.

i am also highly sensitive to chemicals and fragrances. it's definitely NOT in my head or made up to get attention- you can watch my face break out in red splotchy hives and my hands get cracked and weepy with eczema right before your eyes after i am exposed to chemicals and perfumes. (nothing i or my partner use for personal care or the house is scented). it is a real health condition and i have poured thousands of dollars that i really could not afford into keeping it under control.

i actually loathe bringing attention to that too- i find it embarrassing. i would much rather suffer and be polite, but i also have to take care of myself. so i try to pre-emptively bring it up with new coworkers, etc and explain my allergy, suggest alternatives, etc.

in this regard, i agree that the teacher could have handled it better. sending a letter home with each student at the beginning of the school year explaining the necessity for the teacher's health of using minimally scented or preferably unscented products and giving parents a chance to ask questions would have been ideal. schools generally treat allergies seriously- ever heard of those cafeterias where peanut butter is banned? chemical sensitivity is also covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act as a disability that is required to be accomodated.

given that she was reacting to an immediate situation, you do have to understand that while undergoing a reaction to chemicals, it does affect one's thought processes. look up "brain fog", or even just the basic affects of adrenaline and fight or flight responses. when your body is freaking out on you in alarming ways, you tend to panic.

personally, and i say this knowing how often people try to say "it wouldn't matter if the person was white, black or purple" as an attempt to disguise their racism, i react the same way to chemicals and perfumes no matter who is wearing them. also, even if a product is organic, "natural", or otherwise non-synthetic, that doesn't mean that i will not react to it.

to those commenters who were discussing body odor and interpreting the teacher's actions as a reaction to aesthetic unpleasantness, you misinterpreted things. using a "room freshener" would make things much much worse for me if i was reacting to a scented product- it's a chemical and a perfume too, duh!

there are many websites that cover natural black hair care and offer tips for using things like coconut oil (as in the kind you use for cooking), the "no-poo" hair care method (wash with a baking soda paste, rinse with apple cider vinegar), etc.

people of color and people with chemical sensitivities are both underprivileged in this society. i see this as another case of minorities "playing the oppression olympics" when they could be working together to assure that everyone's needs are met and that everyone is heard, valued, and accommodated.

a link to an example of "no-poo" hair care: http://motowngirl.com/index.php/no-shamp…

also a side note: i acknowledge that visible markers of otherness mean that people with those markers (ie skin color, hair color, being in a wheelchair, etc) will be denied privileges that come with visible markers of normativity (ie whiteness, "good" hair, physical ability).

a person with chemical sensitivities, of course, does not look any different from any other person (unless they are wearing a carbon filter mask or something, but if one's sensitivities are that bad, they are probably housebound, as my mom is). if a person with chemical sensitivities is white, the fact that they do not have the privilege of freely interacting with the world without fear of damaging their health does not negate their white privilege. i fully recognize this and understand your interpretation of the situation, charles. and of course, a person can have chemical sensitivities and be racist at the same time.

a person can also have chemical sensitivities, be a person of color, and be an anti-racist activist at the same time. while these identities necessarily intersect in complicated ways in our society, let's not assume that they are inherently linked.

Out of a bit of curiosity, what is the tenure of this teacher?

I only ask because when I was in Horizon, the only black kids permitted in even that echelon (sub AP above standard level) were students of black parents employed by the school district...Jones, Howard_ great administrators with gifted children. No black kids were in AP.

I ask about the tenure because of my experiences with advanced class teachers. Some aren't any different then most of your standard dinosaurs. But having "results" plus tenure gives them even more ego.

It reminds me of the ST article about a teacher trying to re-institute cursive. Cursive existed souly for the quill pen and the blobs every new letter would start. When was the last time anyone has used the quill with any everyday use?

Remember, when you stink and you're quarantined from people offended by strong odors(or someone who is hypersensitive to smell, like myself), it's the white man's fault. Just call racism, make yourself as stinky as possible, then claim that it's part of your "culture" and that discriminating against it in any way is evil. Don't ever once think that you and yours may ever be in the wrong, that's some racist white man thinking.

As with most negros, you are too sensitive.The incident has nothing to do with race it has to do with the fact that you sent a stinky kid to school.

Hey, everyone (@110). In Seattle, a kid's inclusion in APP is determined by performance on two free tests. (Or by performance on tests paid for by the parents if they choose.)

No one is "permitting" any kids to join the program. There is no income criterion. There are no gatekeepers. You perform well enough, you get in.

I want to know the follow up. Did someone bitch-slap that teacher into outer space?

I'm sorry your daughter had to suffer her teacher's thoughtless behavior.

Oh I see its ok to advicate violance on a white person who thought she did the right thing but not to advicate that the child stinks as bad enough that it would make your eyes water and make you gag that the child maybe has a bath more than once a year what would have happened if the made the child bath or have a shower at the school or maybe just send the stink bonb home and tell them not to come back untill they no longer stink

Just to set the record straight.

AP stands for Advanced Placement courses. These are national standardized classes that have a major test on one day a year for college credit (and if you don't get college credit, it looks great on your transcript that you even tried to take one and take the test for it). This program is run by the College Board which also handles the SATs. ANYONE can be in an AP class. You do not have to have taken an AP class to take an AP test.

APP (Accelerated Progress Program) is the Seattle Public Schools' upper tier program for gifted students from grades 1-8. There are two elementaries and two middle schools with the program. (In high school, the middle school cohort gets an "in" to Garfield because they have the most AP classes but many go to other high schools.) You have to test for all SPS gifted programs except for ALO (Advanced Learning Opportunities) which are at many schools and serve any child who wants the rigor. The third program in the gifted program is called Spectrum.

They don't test all students because of the cost. But any child can sign up to be tested, for free, in late September/early October. Despite considerable outreach, APP and Spectrum tend to be largely white and Asian. Many teachers/principals can be reluctant to have their highest achievers leave their schools because of the pressure for good scores for the state standardized tests. High achievers' test scores raise the school average. Naturally, it is completely wrong for principals to not make sure every family knows of this opportunity and the decision should be the parents', not the school's.

APP

@ 107

The concept that seems to be confounding YOU is that an action doesn't have to have racist intention for it to be racially-insensitive.

And we're not arguing about universal morality here (or at least I'm not). We're trying, through discussion, to come to a consensus about what kind of behavior is acceptable in our society--and what isn't. The consensus, at least in this thread (not counting the really deranged people), is that a teacher leading the sole black girl out of a class because she objects to the smell of her hair is not okay.

The concept that seems to be confounding YOU is that an action doesn't have to have racist intention for it to be racially-insensitive.

OMFG. Look, Charles posted this story for a very specific reason: the other day he made some crack about an abandoned Asian girl with a blond doll and everyone jumped on him for making everything about race. So he posted this story as a "very good example" of how, "[Race] is not something with which [Charles has] a theoretical or intellectual distance from. It is immediate. It is there all of the time." The reasonable inference being that Charles is sensitive to race issues because race issues are manifest in his life whether he goes looking for them or not (see above re: double consciousness).

The implication here is that racist conduct forces itself into his awareness; so this story is a "very good example" of the kind of racist conduct that forces itself into his awareness. "Racially insensitive" is not projected conduct -- it's received conduct. It's conduct identified and processed by the observer, as suggested by your reliance on "consensus" opinion. Consensus is about what you think constitutes bad behavior; it is, pretty much by definition, a theoretical or intellectual construct. So that distinction matters in this conversation in a way that it might not in another type of conversation. Correspondingly, consensus opinion matters much less than it might in another sort of conversation.

You seem to be making a distinction between "racist conduct"--in which a person is aware that he/she is treating another person differently because of his or her race--and "racially-insensitive conduct"--in which a person is unaware but is doing it nonetheless. The difference for you seems to be intent, motivation. Murder versus manslaughter.

But I'm not quite sure why this distinction matters. If Charles' daughter is made to feel badly, or different, because of her race in class, isn't that something that Charles and his daughter have to deal with pretty concretely? Why is this intellectual/theoretical (and therefore somehow out of bounds)?

I don't hear a lot of people questioning B.P.'s motivation. I hear them being upset because there is a ton of fucking oil in the ocean.

That teacher is seriously racist. She sleeps with her DOG, but she can't deal with specifically your daughter's hair? That's ridiculous. What a fucking liar.

Race is a daily issue, and obviously racist actions should be addressed. I seriously hope you brought this up with the principal, and I'm interested in knowing what they have to say about it.

If Charles' daughter is made to feel badly, or different, because of her race in class, isn't that something that Charles and his daughter have to deal with pretty concretely? Why is this intellectual/theoretical (and therefore somehow out of bounds)?

Baseline scenario: I am white. I am walking down the street. An African American man walks up to me and punches me in the nose, breaking my nose. He then runs away and is later arrested by the police and positively identified as the man who attacked me.

Permutation One: I am in a neighborhood predominately populated by white people. I infer that the attack was precipitated by something other than my ethnicity: mistaken identity, mental illness on the part of the perpetrator, what have you.

Permutation Two: I am in a neighborhood predominately populated by African American people. I infer that the attack was precipitated by my ethnicity.

Question: Under Permutation Two, and assuming that no other evidence about his motives comes to light, should the assault charge against the man who attacked me be upgraded to a hate crime?

Yeah, sure it should. Because in order to be a hate crime, only the race of the parties is looked at.

Oh, wait. No, it isn't.

Says the Seattle Times: "Malicious harassment is the state's hate-crime charge, and in such crimes the victims are targeted specifically because of their gender, race, religion, sexual orientation or disability."

See, they need evidence that the victim was targeted because of his or her race, sex, religion, etc. Otherwise, it's not called a hate crime.

@126

Yes, but according to Sally all you need to establish racial animus as a motive is for someone to do something that can make the victim feel they've been targeted because of their race, such that the perpetrator should have been aware that the victim might make that inference.

@ 125

There are all kinds of lenses you can use to look at a given situation. Legal is one of them, but it wasn't the one either of us was using before.

@108 &109 Thank you for your comments.

That the teacher is not chemically sensitive to dogs has no bearing whatsoever on a potential chemical sensitivity to a personal care product.

"The difference for you seems to be intent, motivation. Murder versus manslaughter.

But I'm not quite sure why this distinction matters. If Charles' daughter is made to feel badly, or different, because of her race in class, isn't that something that Charles and his daughter have to deal with pretty concretely? Why is this intellectual/theoretical (and therefore somehow out of bounds)?"

intent matters--that's why there's a distinction made between murder and manslaughter.

Intent matters because the situation is dimensional, and doesn't only effect Charles' daughter, but also the teacher, and the rest of the class, and the world we live in. If the teacher for whatever reason was unaware of the potential implications of what she was doing/saying, but a majority agreed to view it through a particular lens (one, as you say, of any number of potential lenses) and that particular lens decided that the teacher was Bad, and fired her/humiliated her/etc, it would completely shut down any learning (for ALL parties) that could come out of the situation. the teacher would most likely come away feeling misunderstood, distrustful, angry, and probably wouldn't gain much new understanding, and Charles' daughter would come out of it thinking that she had been discriminated against, when the reality of the situation could be much more complex. And both (all) parties would be missing out on the invaluable Learning Opportunity that could be created by having a conversation about what happened instead of placing blame. anecdotal example: I grew up white in Seattle, and hyper-aware of the feeling that we were all really uncomfortable about race, and trying to seem like we weren't. I don't know that I really understood any of it, but I definitely knew that I should be careful to treat black people COMPLETELY normal (definitely never do/say anything that could be construed as prejudiced, including being *too* nice, or acting uncomfortable, or anything). which, predictably, made me pretty fucking nervous around black people and absolutely mute in any sort of conversation to do with race. which makes for no kind of communication at all. a la Seattle.

the main problem (that I see) is that by relying on interpretation without regard for intention you're creating a society/world which disregards reality itself. just because a person or a majority comes to a consensus on what they *believe,* it doesn't change what actually happened. which actually negates responsibility, because you've weakened the correlation between cause and effect.

none of this is to say I think the teacher's actions were ok--I agree w/all who said that regardless of racial/nonracial motivations, you should never ever treat a kid that way. or a person. also, sorry if this was incoherent, i haven't slept much the past couple of days and sentences are freakin' HARD right now.

Princess:

I agree with what you've said. I didn't mean to imply that intention doesn't matter at all, only that how it is received matters, too. Both have to be taken into account if there is going to be a constructive dialogue. And I agree with you that in Seattle having a constructive (honest) dialogue about race is way harder than it should be.

@sally

Okay, here's another scenario:

A teacher in a third-grade classroom sets up a game where his students walk single-file across a short platform. When they reach the end of the platform, the teacher lifts each one and carries the student to another platform. The game is working fine until the teacher gets to Quincy, who is grossly overweight for a third-grader. There is simply no way the teacher can lift Quincy and carry him over to the other platform, and the teacher makes the mistake of saying so. Quincy is horribly embarrassed.

Question: was the teacher being a fat-phobic douche, or just a standard-issue douche?

In the absence of other data to support an accusation of fat-phobia, it's fair to assume that the teacher was just being a standard-issue douche in that he both failed to anticipate the problem and then failed to handle it in a way that would spare Quincy's feelings.

The distinction matters for the same reason the distinction between assault and hate-crime assault matters; the aggravated charge carries a heavier sentence. It's irresponsible to accuse the teacher of racial insensitivity without some proof more compelling than the fact that Charles's daughter is the only African American kid in the class, particularly given that any charge of racism is a hanging offense in Seattle Schools. Remember that whole stink with Brian Emanuels? The position of the Seattle NAACP was effectively that they would rather see a computer science teacher who wanted to work with disadvantaged minority students fired than have a computer science teacher who used the n-word in what was pretty clearly nothing more than a fit of bad judgment.

Which brings me back to Charles. He used this as a "very good example" of the racism that he has to deal with every day -- without actually presenting any evidence that race was anything other than a collateral factor in the scenario. The things he's posted since lead me to believe there is other evidence he hasn't shared that would provide more convincing prove of a racial motive. But just based on what he posted here, his conclusion was hasty and irresponsible.

A similar thing happened to the mixed race child of two very close friends of mine. The girl looks very much like her African-American mother, and goes to a private school for high achievers. They felt very lucky that she qualified to get into this school, as it is very exclusive. The mom makes homemade lip balms and soaps as a home-based business, and their child was sent home from this exclusive school because her lips were too shiny. The lip balm was unscented, uncolored, and totally harmless to anyone or anything. But the little girl's lips were TOO SHINY for her to be taught her lessons? It was basically homemade Chapstick, for gosh sakes. I am not sure whether the child was admonished in front of others or privately, but either way, seems like racism to me.

that's incredibly fucked up and shitty. but you know what else is fucked up and shitty?: the fact that based on your previous post, you care more about a little girl having a doll of the same ethnicity as her than you do about the safety of said little girl. the girl's blond doll was the first thing i noticed but after realizing that she was wondering around alone-guess what? that totally fucking trumped my concern about her doll.

damn dude,wash your nasty ass kids hair.

the school isnt "raciss yo" for noticing or being overpowered by your kids dirty ass hair.
you dont have to choose a shower and you dont have to choose a bath....but choose SOMETHING and wash you damn filthy ass kids hair.

you may be an unfit father.

Ah to be able to intellectualize racism. I wonder if it's as lovely as I dream it to be...

I'm with #1, Charles. Keep your head up.

# 140 its not racism its called being a realist

oh my god. i hope you are taking that teacher to court, where she doesn't stand a chance. meanwhile (if i dare prod memories of junior high), white girls make their heads reek with products far less innocuous than olive oil.

Charles,
It's makes a story so much more sensationalized when you leave out important points like the teacher sent out notices to ALL PARENTS, of ALL RACES that she was chemically sensitive and asked that children don't wear chemical products in their hair or skin. I happen to know this teacher and she sent out similar letters 5 years ago, as she had health issues then. Although quirky in her own way, she is actually very a very good teacher and who, several years ago, taught my child a lot about racism in the world, and how to have a consciousness around it. Perhaps what she missed to convey is how much damage can occur from a racially wounded parent who can't rise out of his own pain and allow his child succeed beyond it. Your child is in an advanced program, where she probably belongs and would greatly benefit from, but doesn't have a chance if you can't put down your hyper-vigilance and see that what you went through in your past, may NOT be what your child is going through. It sounds like the teacher handled the situation poorly, but you could have definitely handled the situation better,rather than trying to raise a mass hysteria, Be a role model, a leader, rather than a reactionary hysteric. If you want this issue to heal, show that you are capable of credibility, dignity and an intelligent dialogue. Your reaction is no different than the ignorant jerks that are blaming Obama for the immensely complex problems of this country, looking to pull the race card at any given moment.

Charles, is there any news about this?

I would love to know how the teacher knew it was *your* daughter's hair that was allegedly making her ill. As most people with implicitly racist attitudes she probably just assumed instinctively that if something was wrong (or smelly) it was your daughter. I'm sorry this happened to you and your daughter.

@Judah - if the teacher is dumb enough to make class about being able bodied and doesn't look out for the feelings of his students, he shouldn't be teaching. What if he had proposed that whoever runs around the track fastest gets an A right in front of a kid in a wheelchair? Same difference.