Redditor alleges her 6 y/o was forced to eat alone for ‘distracting’ peers with ‘smelly’ Asian food

June 15, 2022

A Chinese Reddit user shared a post to the subreddit

The user, u/sndyu, explained that her 6-year-old daughter is in second grade and had returned to school a few months ago after doing remote learning. Her daughter began “asking for pizza more” and did not want her usual packed lunches. When the user asked why she did not want to eat her “favorite foods” anymore, her daughter said that she wanted to sit with her classmates at lunch. The daughter then revealed that the teacher purportedly forced her to sit in another room alone as her “smelly foods” were “distracting” to the other students.

The user mentioned that she had also been targeted by teachers when she was in school and was not allowed to bring “shrimp or anything with garlic or onion,” as they reportedly “hated the smell.”

“I was really upset because she is half Chinese but she clearly looks Asian and I felt it was my childhood trauma happening [to] her,” the user wrote.

After the revelation, the user requested to meet with the teacher, who purportedly denied her daughter’s claims. The daughter’s best friend and another teacher, however, confirmed that she had been eating alone during lunch.

“Another teacher confirmed [she] had seen her eating alone and her homeroom teacher switched stories that she had but it was because my daughter brought a persimmon to school and it was distracting the other kids because they thought she was eating a tomato and she didn’t want her distracting the other students by having ‘foreign’ food,” the user explained.

In another incident, a student bullied the user’s daughter for bringing “tomato egg stir fry,” and rather than punishing the bully, the daughter was reportedly taken into a separate room.

The user claimed that the teacher did not believe she did anything wrong, and so she decided to report the teacher to the principal. Her daughter was then moved to another homeroom teacher. She also mentioned that her husband did not believe their daughter, which the user speculated was “because he is white.”

With over 14,000 upvotes and 971 comments since being uploaded, many Redditors said the user is “not the assh*le,” and reassured her that she did the right thing by reporting the teacher to the principal. Some suggested that she take further action while many bashed the husband for being “inconsiderate.”

“NTA – This sounds like discrimination based on the food she brings in, just because it has ties to her heritage. How ugly of that teacher to other a child and call her food “smelly.” School is a place where she should feel safe and uplifted, not targeted and whittled down,” one Redditor wrote.

“And what a waste of a perfect opportunity to teach kids to be curious about and respect other cultures. If only the teacher wasn’t a raging racist, this could’ve been a great chance to expand the kids’ worldviews,” another user commented.

“NTA. The teacher is obviously a racist AH but your husband is an AH as well. Everyone should educate themselves about racism in their country (America?) but especially the father of a biracial child who is visibly Asian,” another Redditor wrote.

Featured Image via Pexels

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