A student film project re-enacting important historical events? Happens all the time.

If I had seen 6 or 7 students in full Nazi regalia (for comparison, as that would be an equivalent over here) walking through school during lunch-hour, my first thoughts wouldn't be "blitzkrieg" or "ethnic cleansing" but ... Student Film project.

Now, the costumed students who verbally invited a black student to join them as a "lynching victim" may have misjudged the situation and acted badly, made inappropriate jokes. That happens.

But one of the black students is quoted as saying that he was immediately enraged at the sight of these students and headed over to "deal with it". Not "curious" or "surprised" and "determined to look into it", but angry and ready for a fight.  Now, that's showing just as poor judgement, if not worse. 

This is not about kids starting a youth chapter of KKK at the high school. It's about students with a particular interest in history doing a class project on racism. Much is made of the fact that there were no Black students in the group (though they were not all "white"), but it's hardly the teacher's fault that no black students took that history course.

I can certainly see that with these kinds of reactions, the teacher and her students would have benefited from being more careful about shooting this film on school grounds during school hours (although that's usually how student film projects are done.)

But I really don't see any malice or degree of insensitivity on her part that would warrant her being fired or even censured. This, to me, is a gross overreaction.

And won.

This was the first time Will made his observation that the Constitution guarantees us no protection against being offended. i

First, McCallum is writing jokes about killing the President for his school children and now Knut doesn't see the harm in wearing KKK uniforms and joking about killing black school children.

I guess racism is a-okay as long as it's "funny". But it is bad when those black people don't "get" the joke. 

This thread title has never been more true.

First, McCallum is writing jokes about killing the President for his school children

WHOA!

Paul, read that crafted line again, with the emphasis on the word PRACTICAL which I put in italics to try and punch the meaning. The joke is based on the age old complaint that there is NOTHING taught to you in HIGH SCHOOL MATH that you will EVER USE AGAIN in your life. And thus the response to that observation is THIS teacher's lesson in angles which are used to effect a presidential assassination which undoubtedly is so much MORE PRACTICAL.

As in it ISN'T. As in it's completely IMPRACTICAL. As in it's WRONG and OFFENSIVE and something ELSE you will never use again from your high school education.

It's sarcasm, and sardonic humour.

And, as I wrote previously, it's a china cup of a line. You've got to deliver it just so with the proper inflection to make the point clear. Otherwise, you risk prompting a response like yours, Paul.

More to the point, Paul, you call "racism" but let's take the current incumbant or any of his recent predecessors out of the equation. If this math teacher drew up his lesson plan with Dealy Plaza and the Grassy Knoll and the Sixth Floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building, I would still find the process offensive and wrong UNLESS the approach was not how do we commit this crime but rather how do we solve it.

Nevertheless, with all the PRACTICAL and USEFUL ways you can teach angles -- from billard tables to hockey rinks to space ship trajectories -- there is LOTS of ground that can be covered before you have to engage in lessons that involve taking human life.

Paul, I don't see any harm in ACTORS wearing KKK uniforms WHILE making a film about racism in America for HISTORY CLASS.

And they weren't joking about "killing black school children". They were jokingly asking a black kid if he wanted to be part of a dramatization of a lynching party.

Crude, yes, possibly. It could also be facetious, a snide reaction to perceived hostility, a bad joke or it could have been a straightforward and honest question.  Any of these could be possible from the context as presented. Because the context is incomplete.

The student reportedly being harrassed has made no statements about how he perceived the situation. His cousin who, according to himself, went over to pick a fight with these guys as soon as he saw them, before any jokes were made or any words exchanged, is the only one quoted as taking offense.

Read that again: the sole quoted witness in that article for their behaviour being negative or hurtful was the guy who got angry and wanted to pick a fight at the mere sight of their costumes. Not because they behaved badly but because he went into a rage over ACTORS wearing COSTUMES.

Because when this happened, the students were actors in costume. They were not a bunch of racist kids wearing KKK uniforms as a political statement.

And when they, not doing anything wrong, are faced with people lashing out at them in anger, inappropriate humor is not an uncommon response, nor is it a "racist" response.

If some kid wearing a nazi uniform for a Student Film was approached by some angry guy calling him out as a nazi and acting very hostile, I would not be surprised if he reacted with a snide comment that would be poor and inappropriate humor about whether they guy wanted to play a KZ- camp inmate. 

But responding to a threat of possible physical violence with inappropriate humor doesn't turn these guys into villains.  Remember, this offended kid makes it quite clear that he was prepared to physically assault the kids in the KKK uniforms.  And that he saw nothing wrong with that. 

In light of that, inappropriate humor, while bad, is not an overreaction. 

People seem to leap from them wearing KKK uniforms to them being some sort of racist mob on the prowl for black students.

They were history geeks and actors in costume, who were accosted and threatened with physical violence and reacted with inappropriate humor.  That is all.

Remember Ackbar's wise words, Jodi - "IT'S A TRAP!"

Does anybody else see the anagram?

No tricks, Jodi (or Mike O'B). Actually, the conversion you'd need to be more worried about is my evangelical efforts on behalf of NHL Hockey!

Knut, what I take offense to is the fact that you think the black kid getting angry about seeing people dressed up in KKK uniforms is worse than the racially insensitive jokes. The teacher should have known better than to let the kids parade around the school in those outfits. How dumb could she have been not to think this wouldn't have caused problems? But really Knut, keep blaming the black people whenever white people do something stupid.

Matthew, no need to patronize me by explaining the joke. I "get" the joke. I'm not an idiot. Children, however, may not understand sarcasm and that you mean no harm with a joke. That's what I found ignorant about your post. Not the fact you felt the need to share the joke. But the fact that you wrote this joke for your child to tell other children.