“I don’t think these comments are entirely harmless, but most of the time I just roll my eyes and say something like, ‘Wow, that’s racist.’ I don’t hesitate to initiate serious conversations when something cringe-worthy happens, like when someone who isn’t Asian squints his eyes and does a mocking ‘ching, chong’ Chinese routine, or when a white kid flippantly uses the n-word.
“When I first started working there, I was dismayed by all of this very casual racism. Now I feel that most of these comments are from kids coming to terms with the overt and covert racism that they encounter every day, mixed with a bit of ignorance. Does a middle-aged white woman have any business calling out the casual (self-directed) racism of teenagers who are navigating an often racist and sometimes hostile culture? If so, how? And should I even be making a distinction between self-directed and other-directed racism?” —Thoughtful Teacher
