High school pulls newspaper over racist opinion piece

[I'm Gone 60]

Yeah shoot the messenger. I totally agree

The writer says most of the crowd is black and variously describes the students as stupid, rude, immature and insensitive, summing up: "When I go to Taco Bell, I want to go to a restaurant, NOT A ZOO! Stop acting like animals … behave and clean up after yourself."

[mawilson 2,133]

Calling a black person a monkey is a racial slur and it has been used before...

So what if it is? Is racist speech illegal now?

[PlatyPius 5]

And based on the ethnic breakdown of the school.....isn't it the majority picking on the minority to not let the whities print their opinion?

Why do you assume the author was white? Referring to raucous behavior on the part of African-Americans as 'monkey-like' is certainly not something only white people do. I've heard it from Latinos, East Asians and South Asians as well. Heck, given the racial makeup of that school, the author is more likely to be Latino or East Asian than white.

I agree....the author is most likely Mexican ("Latino" is considered offensive around here by the Mexicans. LOL) or possibly Filipino.

[KarenCee 3]

And based on the ethnic breakdown of the school.....isn't it the majority picking on the minority to not let the whities print their opinion?

Why do you assume the author was white? Referring to raucous behavior on the part of African-Americans as 'monkey-like' is certainly not something only white people do. I've heard it from Latinos, East Asians and South Asians as well. Heck, given the racial makeup of that school, the author is more likely to be Latino or East Asian than white.

I agree....the author is most likely Mexican ("Latino" is considered offensive around here by the Mexicans. LOL) or possibly Filipino.

*sighs*

So what do we refer to people of different ethnicities as? We are ALL human beings, to be sure. When I refer to someone as Mexican, Black, Native American, Asian, etc. it's not to refer to them that way in a racist way. Why DO they have to be so darned sensitive? I know society has caused a lot of this, but you'd think that a person's intelligence would step in and say "I know that wasn't meant to be a racist remark".

It seems that a lot of people in this world go looking for racism. How sad. Of course, this is just MHO.

[peejay 327]

And based on the ethnic breakdown of the school.....isn't it the majority picking on the minority to not let the whities print their opinion?

Why do you assume the author was white? Referring to raucous behavior on the part of African-Americans as 'monkey-like' is certainly not something only white people do. I've heard it from Latinos, East Asians and South Asians as well. Heck, given the racial makeup of that school, the author is more likely to be Latino or East Asian than white.

I agree....the author is most likely Mexican ("Latino" is considered offensive around here by the Mexicans. LOL) or possibly Filipino.

Again...how do you know? It could have been a black person making the observation. Bill Cosby is well known for letting the chips fly where they may. Black folks aren't always monolithic.

However...I'm sure there are those that wish the writer to be white. All the more reason to keep everyone wondering.

Hopefully the true moral of the story will be to put the punks on notice at the Taco Bell or to put the manager of the store on notice to enforce some decorum. An off duty cop working security at the store would go a long way.

A call or letter to the Taco Bell corporate office would be a lot more productive than publishing a letter in a school newspaper.

[ILIKEALLCAPS 0]

And based on the ethnic breakdown of the school.....isn't it the majority picking on the minority to not let the whities print their opinion?

Why do you assume the author was white? Referring to raucous behavior on the part of African-Americans as 'monkey-like' is certainly not something only white people do. I've heard it from Latinos, East Asians and South Asians as well. Heck, given the racial makeup of that school, the author is more likely to be Latino or East Asian than white.

I agree....the author is most likely Mexican ("Latino" is considered offensive around here by the Mexicans. LOL) or possibly Filipino.

*sighs*

So what do we refer to people of different ethnicities as? We are ALL human beings, to be sure. When I refer to someone as Mexican, Black, Native American, Asian, etc. it's not to refer to them that way in a racist way. Why DO they have to be so darned sensitive? I know society has caused a lot of this, but you'd think that a person's intelligence would step in and say "I know that wasn't meant to be a racist remark".

It seems that a lot of people in this world go looking for racism. How sad. Of course, this is just MHO.

Thank you Karen, for pointing out that the "news" of the ethnic breakdown of the school was a wild herring. Why did I assume the author was white? Why didn't you? More importantly, why didn't everyone NOT assume that a teenager describing a sample of their peers, who are regularly behaving like undisciplined louts, as "monkeys" at a "zoo" is automatically being racist. Perhaps the author was describing their behavior as something similar to, oh I don't know, what you'd see a monkey behave like....and pointing out that human beings are supposed to be able to rise above that? That's the issue. Should high school students be allowed to write metaphorically?

(and don't think I haven't noticed y'all still using vowels.....is this becoming a board full of hate-crime perpetuators? Or is it possible that we could recognize that any event could be twisted to be culturally/ethnically/gender/whatever bias, and we need to deal with that before we have a race riot over rude teenage behavior? Jump to your conclusions from here.)

[sparkofcreation 0]

And based on the ethnic breakdown of the school.....isn't it the majority picking on the minority to not let the whities print their opinion?

Why do you assume the author was white? Referring to raucous behavior on the part of African-Americans as 'monkey-like' is certainly not something only white people do. I've heard it from Latinos, East Asians and South Asians as well. Heck, given the racial makeup of that school, the author is more likely to be Latino or East Asian than white.

I agree....the author is most likely Mexican ("Latino" is considered offensive around here by the Mexicans. LOL) or possibly Filipino.

And being called "Mexican" is offensive to people from the other two dozen countries in Latin America that aren't Mexico. It's like insisting on calling me Belgian because my ancestors came from Europe, even though none of them came from Belgium.

Edited November 24, 2006 by sparkofcreation

[peejay 327]

And based on the ethnic breakdown of the school.....isn't it the majority picking on the minority to not let the whities print their opinion?

Why do you assume the author was white? Referring to raucous behavior on the part of African-Americans as 'monkey-like' is certainly not something only white people do. I've heard it from Latinos, East Asians and South Asians as well. Heck, given the racial makeup of that school, the author is more likely to be Latino or East Asian than white.

I agree....the author is most likely Mexican ("Latino" is considered offensive around here by the Mexicans. LOL) or possibly Filipino.

And being called "Mexican" is offensive to people from the other two dozen countries in Latin America that aren't Mexico. It's like insisting on calling me Belgian because my ancestors came from Europe, even though none of them came from Belgium.

It's only offensive if they are offended.

[mawilson 2,133]

And being called "Mexican" is offensive to people from the other two dozen countries in Latin America that aren't Mexico. It's like insisting on calling me Belgian because my ancestors came from Europe, even though none of them came from Belgium.

Ooh yeah that's really offensive. You Belgian

[sparkofcreation 0]

And based on the ethnic breakdown of the school.....isn't it the majority picking on the minority to not let the whities print their opinion?

Why do you assume the author was white? Referring to raucous behavior on the part of African-Americans as 'monkey-like' is certainly not something only white people do. I've heard it from Latinos, East Asians and South Asians as well. Heck, given the racial makeup of that school, the author is more likely to be Latino or East Asian than white.

I agree....the author is most likely Mexican ("Latino" is considered offensive around here by the Mexicans. LOL) or possibly Filipino.

And being called "Mexican" is offensive to people from the other two dozen countries in Latin America that aren't Mexico. It's like insisting on calling me Belgian because my ancestors came from Europe, even though none of them came from Belgium.

It's only offensive if they are offended.

And they are. Wouldn't you be?

And being called "Mexican" is offensive to people from the other two dozen countries in Latin America that aren't Mexico. It's like insisting on calling me Belgian because my ancestors came from Europe, even though none of them came from Belgium.

Ooh yeah that's really offensive. You Belgian

It is offensive. You Frenchie.

[cmartyn 0]

Oh! Frenchie! How about Waffle Breath or something lol.

[Ban Hammer 13,678]

Calling a black person a monkey is a racial slur and it has been used before...

unless, of course, the one saying that is black too, as shown in previous threads about the "n" word

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Ok, I've just read the entire article on the website.

"Just in case of any potential problems, Keener requested extra security from the school district but said the incident provoked only classroom discussions and some calls from parents."

The only racism I've seen in this whole thing is white people saying that blacks are apparently like monkeys, and that violence is to be expected (see quote above) because of the comments in the paper.

Funny that....it's always the PC people who make it worse.

Can you post the link to the newspaper article?

(assuming that's what you meant)

Calling a black person a monkey is a racial slur and it has been used before...

unless, of course, the one saying that is black too, as shown in previous threads about the "n" word

Blacks calling other blacks the "n" word is actually racist. If women accepted the word "b!tch" as a common mode of reference to each other, the fact is that the term is still derogatory, no matter who is using it.

[PlatyPius 5]

The link to the article is in the first post of this topic.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

The link to the article is in the first post of this topic.

I read the article, I was curious to read the editorial piece. Thought that was what you meant - I couldn't find it on-line.

Edited November 25, 2006 by erekose