Racism

As a teacher, you need to be able to think on your feet.

This has become a rather common exchange for me:

Anyone who's been in the business knows that this kind of accusation isn't limited to skin colour, and actually doesn't depend on the child's skin colour at all. A kid could be paler than I am and still claim racism because they're black! I'm not kidding, it has happened (though not to me, personally).

The only thing you can do under these circumstances is have a retort handy. Like this one*, which actually got me high-fives from a few of the boys:

*Name changed to protect the guilty