Miss what are you?

My students don't have a huge grasp on appropriate racial terms. I hope this is true of many 12-year-olds and not just my students.

One of my students was trying to describe a character in our book and she looked all puzzled and then this conversation followed.
"Miss, what are you?'
"What do you mean what am I Nicole?"
"I mean... well... like... I couldn't just call you a white girl."
"Actually Nicole, the un-technical term for me is white."
"Really? I thought white girl was an insult."
"The real term is Caucasian, but white works as well."
"Caucasian? Miss, that sounds weird, are you sure that's not an insult?"

At this point in the conversation Isabel decided to shout across the room that Jessica was a Caucasian. This goes down as 5,236 inappropriate thing Isabel has yelled out in my classroom. Last time I checked Caucasian was not an insult, but leave it to Isabel to turn it into one. I have no idea what I'm going to do with this child.

My racial conversation of the week doesn't even compare to the one Christina had. One of our students asked her if she was Pennsylvanian. You know, because people from Cuba are Cubans. Our student is convinced that Pennsylvania is a part of Canada and therefore Christina is her own nationality and race.

That's more than I got. I'm now apparently an insult.