When a New Jersey boy asked for dessert at his school, officials became highly offended. Because of the word he used in the lunchroom, they thought the nine-year-old student was being racist. The administration called the New Jersey police and identified the student for the cops so they could punish him in front of the other students. But as the boy’s mother claims, the child was simply asking for “brownies” for dessert.
The entire situation seems to have been a misunderstanding. Because the New Jersey boy simply wanted his favorite dessert, brownies, he wasn’t afraid to ask for it. But when another student heard him using that word, he grew suspicious and suspected that the boy was being racist. In other words, the other child heard the word out of context.
This other child reported the incident to a teacher who dialed 911 and alerted the police to the racist student in their midst. And the police did not wait around to come and investigate the potential hate crime in the making.
When the boy’s mother heard the entire story, she was shocked. She could not believe that the school had overreacted to her son asking about a dessert item.
“He said they were talking about brownies,” said the boy’s mother, Stacy dos Santos. “Who exactly did he offend?”
Because her child was labeled as a racist and had a run-in with the police over the misunderstanding, dos Santos does not want her son back at that school for this academic year. As of this writing, it is uncertain whether or not she enrolled the accused boy in another school or not.
“I’m not comfortable with the administration. I don’t trust them, and neither does my child,” the infuriated mother said. “He was intimidated, obviously. There was a police officer with a gun in the holster talking to my son, saying ‘Tell me what you said.’ He didn’t have anybody on his side.”
Because the administration and other students thought the boy was engaging in a racist discussion, they did not have any sympathy for the child during the incident. Only later, when they realized he was speaking about dessert and not a racist slur, did they ease up on him and let him go.
After the boy’s racist outburst, the New Jersey police officers spoke to the child’s parents, including dos Santos, and reported the racist act to the New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency. In other words, the boy was put at risk of being put into foster care because he allegedly asked for “brownies” at school, according to his mother.
Collingswood Police Chief Kevin Carey was glad the school called them to report the incident. Even though it might have been a misunderstanding, Chief Carey wants people to be comfortable calling out racism in all its forms.
“(Even cases) as minor as a simple name-calling incident that the school would typically handle internally” should involve armed police officers.
Since this incident, police officers have been called to the same school as many as five times daily for similar problems.