Racism or allergies?

[Pony_Boy]

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/m...nt?oid=4180400

This is an interesting debate. In a nutshell : The teacher in an advanced learning class asks the only African-American person in the class to leave the room. Teacher claims it was because the girl's hair product was making her feel ill. The girl's father ( who wrote the article) claims its an obvious case of racism

at the end of the article there is a link to a response from the school


Personally, I don't know if I would say this is racism or not. I'm on the fence. On one hand, the teacher did act inappropriately by asking the girl to leave, and her reasons for doing so may be questionable.

On the other hand, some people are extremely sensitive to certain scents and/or products, and it's not out of the question to have a severe reaction to hair products. A lot of the father's claims can be logically explained

What do you all think?

[LillFilly]

The story on both sides sounds strange; although I understand that the father would be upset and it would be hard for him to be impartial. The way the article was written was a little choppy and confusing; I'm not sure where the dog came in!

I WOULD want to see medical proof that the teacher has a sensitivity to the olive oil based hair product. I'd also want to know if any of the other children in the class use it who are not a minority; then we'd see a pattern of racism. The way the article said the teacher told the child to leave was innapropriate; no explination or anything.

[fma_fanatic]

I don't want to start any flame wars, but we have a few African American employees here and some of the product they use is really strong.

One gal uses some sort of gel to smooth her hair and it smells like apples. It's very nice. Another employee uses something that is so strong that it's triggered a migrane and brought tears to my eyes.

I understand that hair can be hard to control, but some of these manufacturers really need to work on how much fragrance they put in them.

[Midorikawa]

As someone with allergies to many products, the teacher's actions and claims are plausible, if not inappropriate for sending the student out of the room. I had a similar experience when I first started working at <current company>. The African American guy next to me used something so strong it make me choke up and start sneezing, coughing and gagging.

He tried to get me fired claiming I was racist, citing the fact that I grew up in Texas as "proof".

I explained what was really going on, was moved elsewhere, and never had a problem since.

While carefully toeing Fratching territory, that article seems to me like the writer is grasping at straws trying to make this into something it really isn't. I'm not saying one way or the other definitively, but his sentence structure and word choice make a lot of the article look like fluff with no real content.

[Boozy]

This kind of subject is a bit too controversial for CS. Please feel free to re-post at Fratching.