Reply #43: What a great reply [View All]

[ellacott]

No name calling and no insults. :) I wish we could have more dialogues like this.

I do agree with a lot of what you say. I'm sorry about the situation with the student. I feel that the people who instructed you not to intervene did a disservice to that student and they were wrong. I don't think they knew how to handle the situation and that's sad. This is what probably has happened to student throughout his life in school. He was passed through school because no one wanted to take the time with the students. This happens very frequently. It's a pattern of lowered expectations that many blacks have to deal with in their daily lives. This could be considered institutional racism.

What Farraro initially said was clumsy and she had the opportunity to clarify. She chose to go on the defensive and makes it worse with every interview she gives. The fact that she feels that she doesn't need to give an explanation or that it doesn't matter if people were offended is very telling. She was the one who said people were calling her a racist when that's not true.

Many people mistakenly use the word racist. She was racially insensitive. By claiming that she was called a racist shuts down any dialogue and people are left with their same feelings of offense by the situation is never addressed. When the next racially insensitive event occurs it's added to the previous incident that was never addressed and it snow balls.

She could have said that she feels that he gets better treatment because of his race she may have had a point but she worded it wrong. The fact that she didn't care about clarifying it and immediately claimed that people were calling her a racist, which was untrue, is very sad.