Do Not Overmix

I just got out of a meeting with a parent who chose to give her daughter a beautiful and ethnic name. I really like this student because she has smiling eyes and bad grades and I knew all about her the instant I met her. "What a mischievous name!" I said, when she told me how to pronounce it.

Her mother confronted me about it today. "I'm the one who gave her that name," she clarified. She had an accent that doesn't come from another country, but from another ethnic group.

I was under attack. I knew I had to say something that would put me squarely in the category of Not Racist. "You have to understand," I responded, "...to me, "mischievous" is a positive thing."