Reply to Need advice: DD's interaction with the school's resource officer today

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

[b]Why do you assume the girl is Hispanic?[/b]  The OP said her daughter was a minority, but did not specify which one.  Surely other minorities might take a Spanish class.  For that matter, we don't know that the officer was white.  Although with the OP's declaration of her daughter's minority status, that seems a more logical conclusion to draw.

As for the daughter's instincts, they seem to be telling her it's no big deal.  It seems that by the mother escalating this, she's overriding the child's instincts.

From the original description, I don't see anything "racial" in the interaction.  He was speaking Spanish to a student in a Spanish class.  If he'd spoken Spanish to a Hispanic girl in a French class, then that would be more suspect.

I certainly don't see "flirting".  "Hands up" is neither sexual nor romantic.  Other than it being a male talking to a female,  I can't imagine what sparked that allegation.  [b]If a police officer was going to do something as inappropriate as flirt with a high school student, do you really thing he'd do it in front of a teacher and a classroom of kids?[/b][/quote]

Why do you assume that people can accurately tell, by appearance, who's Hispanic?

Also, people do imprudent things all the time.

In any case, this isn't a question of some random person speaking some random phrase in Spanish to a student in a Spanish class. If the school resource officer did intend mean to make a joke by saying "Hands up" (in any language) to a student, then somebody needs to tell the school resource officer that this is not an appropriate joke. If a police officer said "Hands up" to you, while you were walking by minding your own business, would you think "Ha, ha, what a kidder"?[/quote]

I don't assume that people can tell by looking whether someone is Hispanic.  I just don't assume that describing somebody as a minority automatically means their Hispanic.  There are other minority groups.  Moreover, if he couldn't tell she was "a minority" by looking at her, why is there so much concern over rscism?

If a police officer said "hands up"out of the clear blue, then I'd be confused and try to interpret the context.  It doesn't sound like he was presenting himself in a threatening manner.  Saying it in Spanish doesn't seem official.  In this case, I'd probably conclude that yes, he was kidding.

I've seen grown-ups try to relate to kids and do it badly.

I've seen people using bits of foreign language to relate to language students.  My daughter takes AP Spanish.  Sometimes when she says something beautiful but incomprehensible to me in Spanish, I look at her, smile, and say "si".  I've also had her teach me how to say I love you, something appropriate for a mother to tell a daughter.  I can easily see the officer asking the teacher to teach him something "policeish", and then trying it out on the next available student.

Finally, I've heard jokes and told jokes myself that fell flat, but had no sinister motives attached.  If I inadvertently cause offense, I naturally apologize.  In this case, while nobody thinks he was funny, the people who were actually there didn't seem offended.

One of my favorite teachers in junior high joked a lot with her students and gave us a hard time.  We were all fair game.  Taken out of context, I'm sure a number of her comments would be considered offensive.  This was before the age of political correctness, and we all just rolled with it and enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere.  For the record, although I consider it irrelevant, she was a minority.  Clearly, we had a stronger working relationship than this girl had with the officer, and that makes a difference.[/quote]

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