I agree w/others who have said previously that calling the stupid senior’s college to report this is a stupid & ridiculous idea.
Stupid Senior is soon going to be a high school graduate and will be considered an adult at that time. And you know what? The real world has an ironic way of dealing with people like him. Justice will prevail with him at some point. Just wait until he ends up reporting to a non-Caucasian person at the work place & that person does his performance reviews. Racist comments like that at work are not conducive to retaining long term employment.
IF the OP’s daughter really is friends with this guy, then she should be assertive and calmly explain to him that what he said to her was offensive. This is kind of like “real world” practice because at MOST workplaces, they have a policy in which the FIRST step of addressing stuff like this is for the individual to have a discussion & try to address it directly with the person who did/said the offensive thing. And when that doesn’t work, THEN you escalate.
Unless the boy has a school discipline record or police criminal record or some concrete evidences, it’s not easy to report to the college that he will attend. So far, the OP only has the info about the boy through her daughter. We don’t have all details for judgement.
@saillakeerie yeah husband has always been very protective of his two females. Lucky enough daughter tells me everything before him and I get to filter most. This is a rare case that my husband got the first hand news. That’s why I wanted to handle it in a reasonable manner before him.
This makes me so furious. If this had happened 2 years ago and the kid had said “I think all foreign people should be deported, including you” We all would have been horrified and would have demanded discipline. He’s just using Trump as a “beard” for his hatred.
I’d love to know what kind of parents this boy has. I’d want to go to the AP at the high school, especially since school is almost over.
Maybe a little social payback? Un-friend the kid on social media and get her friends to do likewise? That’s probably all that really can be done…
Running to the AP does not help the global problem or even the current situation. When will people understand that all of this running to the authorities is making the systemic problem worse… Not better.
When the authorities get involved, people choose sides, lines are drawn, the world becomes more divisive. Save the authorities for something bigger than an offensive comment.
I’ve been offended by comments before. It stinks. I brood for a few days then move on. There will always be ignorant people in this world and you are never going to legislate stupidity out of our society.
@tucsonmom, how is high school not “the real world”? Why should a bully like that not be punished now, but wait for it later? Especially if the school has a rule or code that this violates. I don’t see why a workplace is a less acceptable forum for this than a high school.
I’m surprised and a bit horrified at the number of people who think that this is the kind of comment that the OP’s D and others on the receiving end should just let roll of their backs-as if, as someone above said, they were being teased for their hair style or jeans. Decades ago, there were many people who thought it was perfectly fine to tell black people to sit at the back of the bus, to refuse them service, to refuse them the vote, to refuse them medical care. It was perfectly ok to call them the N word or worse. But that’s just “how it was” so they should have just let it roll of their backs, right?
When we teach our kids that insults and racist comments (and that’s what this was) should just “roll off our backs” we teach them that it’s ok. We teach them that it’s ok for others to think that some are “less than”.
I’m glad OP’s D spoke to the boy, not that I imagine she changed him in any way. Someone who tells a minority “friend” that he hopes she’ll be deported has more nastiness inside than a single conversation will remove. I’d still have her to to the administration, because in every school I’ve had a kid attend, hateful speech is not allowed.
There is no “freedom not to be offended” but there IS at least the attempt to reduce hate speech and bigotry. Clearly we have a long way to go with so many people thinking that it’s ok (both here and out there in the wide world) to say such things without consequence.
Because for all practical purposes, a high school and workplace are controlled worlds, where there is no free speech as it exists in the real world.
If someone says this to the OP’s DD on the street or in line at a Starbucks, who will the DD complain to then for punishment? No one. There is a point where one has to learn that others can have some very bad ideas. However, that does not mean punishment for those bad ideas because they have a right to have and say things others consider bad.
And the definitions of hate speech and bigotry are defined by whom?
And that is the problem today, there are people who think they are arbiters of such definitions. Yet, they have defined down “hate speech and bigotry” to include everything from wearing the hairstyle of another culture; to having the wrong sauce on a certain ethnic rice in the cafeteria; to having a functional border that stops people from entering one’s country illegally; to asking someone where they are; and, to having ideas they disagree with - all of these have been called hate speech and bigoted.
Therefore, anyone can charge hate speech and bigotry because supposedly only the offended gets to determine meaning, which is actually quite silly. At a certain point, it is like letting the inmates run the asylum.
Patients and inmates are people who define things the way they want and follow their own rules to convenience themselves and their objectives, no matter how irrational.
At this point, the only thing separating patients and inmates from the people who define down terms to mean almost anything is the gates.
Fwiw, @awcntdb hairstyles aren’t entirely a benign issue. Even today, black students are being sent home from some schools or jobs for having “distracting” or “inappropriate” hairstyles, when they date back centuries in Africa. But when Bo Derek, a white actress wore cornrows in a famous movie years back, white ladies couldn’t find stylists to copy the style fast enough. No, it’s not hate speech, but it sure is a double-standard.
@awcntdb You are certainly entitled to your opinion and even entitled to speak it out loud. Thankfully, the medical community and most of mainstream society are easily able to differentiate between the two.
I find peer pressure to be an effective way to deal with people like this. A long pause combined with a withering look and the phrase “Did you really just say that?” can be more effective than complaining to an authority. I have a BIL who used to make horribly sexist jokes. I would just look at him with the “Really?!!” look. He stopped making the jokes. At one point he jokingly said, “You don’t like me do you?” I responded with “I don’t like your jokes.” He apologized.
It’s likely this kid already knows what he’s saying is not PC (and I use the term in the less disdainful sense.) He may throw this kind of “joke” around with his friends without consequence, and the current political race has made saying such things easier. What he may not know is that it can cost him socially. As is the case with bullying in elementary school, standing up to him and finding allies who will stand with you will do more than running for the teacher.
I agree with the posters who say this is not a kid worthy of your daughter’s time. Complaining to Pomona would be fruitless and a waste of everyone’s energy.
I haven’t read all the posts, because then I wouldn’t be able to finish and respond. I am very angry about this.
I am going to echo Sue22. The main thing to do is for your daughter to tell everyone that he said this. Maybe she should call his parents and tell them even. Cockroaches and bullies like to operate in the dark. Make sure he feels the light of day for his remarks. If enough peers tell him, “Not cool, dude”, he might think again next time he wants to say something like that to someone.
“When we teach our kids that insults and racist comments (and that’s what this was) should just “roll off our backs” we teach them that it’s ok. We teach them that it’s ok for others to think that some are “less than”.”
You couldn’t be further from the truth. Where did I or anyone else say it was OK. My children have been taught that racism and bigotry are not OK. They will stand up to any person saying such things. But they have also been taught that there are and always will be people in our society who are stupid and say ignorant things. They have been taught tolerance. Tolerance of ALL people. That includes those who don’t necessarily think or have the same belief system that they do. You see, I have taught them not to have SELECTIVE tolerance. Some how you have twisted “not running to the authorities” into thinking that racism is OK and that some are “less than”
My children don’t think anyone is “less than” including the idiot who made stupid remarks.