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Life isn’t fair. That’s something we all have to accept from a young age, or we’ll be in for a painful reality check. But sometimes, the playing field could certainly be more even, if favoritism wasn’t a factor.

Redditors have been recalling the most egregious favoritism they’ve ever experienced, so we’ve gathered some of their infuriating stories below. From nepotism in the workplace to parents picking a golden child, enjoy reading through these examples of playing favorites. And be sure to upvote the stories that remind you to always be as impartial as possible!

This post may include affiliate links.

#1

30 People Recall The Most Blatant Cases Of Favoritism They’ve Ever Witnessed In middle school, the teacher's son was in her class and he was relentlessly bullying one of my friends: being in his space all the time, throwing mud and packed ice at him outside. Whenever my friend would try to get him off or yell for him to go away she would say "inside voices please" and "that's just how boys are".

Eventually my friend had enough, picked up the other kid, and gave him a concussion from throwing him on the pavement. He was suspended and then the teacher brought in a speaker to talk about bullying in school. So, being the smart*ss that I was, I raised my hand and asked, "what are we supposed to do when the bully is the teacher's kid and she doesn't see the problem?" and looked right back at her.

My friend was back in school the next week.

Jibjuck , RDNE Stock project/pexels Report

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Lost Panda
Lost Panda
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1 month ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

When I was in school, a kid was never allowed to be in a class their parent(s) taught, and I grew up in a rural area so it wasn't like there was an over abundance of teachers or anything.

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#2

30 People Recall The Most Blatant Cases Of Favoritism They’ve Ever Witnessed * When I was 16, my 13-year-old sister got a brand new cellphone. I never had a phone, and I still didn't at the time.
* I worked 3 jobs in college just to survive. My parents paid my sister's tuition, rent, and bills. They also got her a brand new car. I spent my college years working and using public transportation. My sister spent hers partying and going on road trips with her brand new car.
* When I graduated college, I got nothing. My sister got a brand new MacBook, which was stolen a few months later because she left it in her unlocked car.
* My mother constantly told my sister that she loved her growing up. My mother only said it to me once, in the context of "I love you, but I don't like you".

I have plenty more of these stories. And, no, I don't speak with my parents or sister anymore.

PinkClaws , Alena Darmel /pexels Report

Final score:
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#3

30 People Recall The Most Blatant Cases Of Favoritism They’ve Ever Witnessed Worked in a company for years, my superior left the company and there it was, the possible promotion and new job title including leading a team. I was the only candidate in that team (because they didn't want the responsibility). Boss decided to give the job to his son who had no job experience and told me to help him, because I was one of his best employees.

I quit.

uk_uk , Anna Shvet/pexels Report

Final score:
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#4

30 People Recall The Most Blatant Cases Of Favoritism They’ve Ever Witnessed My mom can kiss the dog as many times as she wants and he's fine with it.

If I kiss the dog, I get growled at.

TgagHammerstrike , RDNE Stock project/pexels Report

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#5

30 People Recall The Most Blatant Cases Of Favoritism They’ve Ever Witnessed One of my classmates always got better scores on comparable essays in a high school literature class. I suggested it was favoritism so we decided to write each other's papers to see what happened. Our study found that no matter who wrote the paper, if I turned it in, I got a worse grade than if she turned it in.

RRuruurrr , RDNE Stock project /pexels Report

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Anna Losonczy
Anna Losonczy
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1 month ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

In high school my friend forgot to write her essay, so I gave her mine to copy. Therefore we literally wrote the same except our names, but she got better grade. :D

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#6

30 People Recall The Most Blatant Cases Of Favoritism They’ve Ever Witnessed Years ago, my Ma and dad re-did their will.

They called me. Said, "I just want you to know, that we re did our will and you'll be getting less of our estate."

K. I didn't need to know that and I honestly wouldn't have cared. But without even asking why, she continued, "You seem to be doing well and your brother works so hard. He's going to need it more."

I was a stay at home mom. My brother was (and continues to be) a top exec in a major corporation in a major city with two millions dollar homes.

I'm now twice divorced, living in an apartment, relocating for a full time job three states away.

Funny, she hasn't called me telling me that maybe she re did her will again.

And this is why I forget Mother's Day.

anon , Pixabay/pexels Report

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Mary Kelly
Mary Kelly
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1 month ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

even when there is a real disparity in children's mean, i think parents should consider how that child's choices led to the disparity...better yet, just split the money equally...why leave final f**k yous to your children?

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#7

30 People Recall The Most Blatant Cases Of Favoritism They’ve Ever Witnessed My mom told my brother a (very boring) family secret and he told me. I mentioned it to her and she got pissed off and said he shouldn't be telling 'other' people about that, it's just for family. I had to remind her that I am also a member of the family.

mordeci00 , Andrea Piacquadio/pexels Report

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#8

30 People Recall The Most Blatant Cases Of Favoritism They’ve Ever Witnessed I'm female. Worked my way up in 9 months from a temp to a downstream operator. Applied for a promotion to the next position up that I and everyone else knows I earned.

Another person, male, on another shift, in my exact position, applied for the position too, but just before, (I will dispense with diplomacy and talk shop), operated the KUKA robot with the touch screen after an operations failure, which is suppose to be a direct call to maintinence, and if you as operator try to fix it yourself it's suppose to be automatic termination. In doing so, he caused the robot to move backwards and break through the cement wall and cause 17,000$ in damage and shut it down for a week waiting for new parts to replace so we could restart the process.

He got the promotion. I quit in protest. He was fired not long after for bringing his guns to work to show off to people.

reyemanivad , Chevanon Photography/pexels Report

Final score:
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#9

30 People Recall The Most Blatant Cases Of Favoritism They’ve Ever Witnessed My mom used to beat the s**t out of me with anything she could get her hands on, over any little thing. (Because I'm my dad's twin). My little sister never got hit reprimanded or even talked to in any way about discipline. Talk about favoritism. I've cut myself off completely from my family.

mizym , Pixabay/pexels Report

Final score:
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#10

30 People Recall The Most Blatant Cases Of Favoritism They’ve Ever Witnessed My nephew's school had two students who won a contest all by themselves. They got a chance to meet the prime minister and show their work. But at the last moment, the principal insisted to add his daughter in the team.

anon , Julia M Cameron /pexels Report

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#11

I babysit for this woman who has two children: 5 and 3. Her oldest will scream and shout and throw tantrums out the a**. Lasts for 30 minutes to an hour. She just talks to her in the sweetest tone and sometimes open threats but gives her whatever she wants. But her youngest, she will send to her room and hits her with a spoon. The oldest NEVER gets this treatment. Her excuse? “She’s been through a lot. Her dad left when she was 1 and the youngest doesn’t know him at all. It’s really hit her hard so I have to be patient with her.” The youngest is the sweetest child, always has manners and listens wonderfully. But the oldest is a spoiled brat and it drives me nuts that she doesn’t see what she’s doing to her kids.

One example of three nights ago. I came over to babysit at 12 am. The youngest was sitting in her room refusing to sleep, not crying. When she heard my voice, she ran out to me excited. She immediately grabbed the spoon and threatened her and she cried and went to her room. The oldest was screaming from the moment I walked in and was begging mom not to leave. “You want milk? You want to sleep in my bed? You want mommy to lay with you for a minute?” Instead of letting me handle it, she was late for work trying to coax her into stopping. Meanwhile, her youngest is in the other room, silently crying and not screaming like her sister. This is all of the time, the favoritism. One sleeps with her mom every night and the other one sleeps in her room by herself. It’s hard for me to stomach every time I see the favoritism.

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LB
LB
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1 month ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That sounds like it might be grounds for reporting her.

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#12

30 People Recall The Most Blatant Cases Of Favoritism They’ve Ever Witnessed My grandma always yelled to my cousins, but she always pampered me and bragged about me to others.

She didn't even try to hide that difference in treatment and I HATE IT when that happened. Even the little-child-me recognized and despised it very much.

Obviously my relationship with my cousins isn't good till now.

PutinsArmpit , cottonbro studio/pexels Report

Final score:
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T'Mar of Vulcan
T'Mar of Vulcan
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1 month ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I was the cousin who was treated badly by my aunt and uncle, and they blatantly favoured my one female cousin (even though there were something like 10 female cousins on that side of the family - and neither of us was their child). Consequently I *hated* my cousin without knowing exactly why, and while as an adult I recognize that she didn't do anything to me, it's hard to separate that from the resentment I feel. My other cousin (their actual daughter) constantly wonders why no one visits her father now that's he's over 70. I dunno, why doesn't his favourite fly back here from Australia to visit him - she's the one he really wants to see.

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#13

30 People Recall The Most Blatant Cases Of Favoritism They’ve Ever Witnessed At the end of our senior party that was organized for my school, they had a raffle with a bunch of expensive prizes. Every single parent who helped organize the raffle had a child who won big and the main organizer had her son win the 2500 dollar grand prize with the not suspicious speech of “and of course, the winner of the grand prize is Charlie.” Yeah f**k that s**t, I walked out with a 5 dollar gift card to an ice cream shop that had already gone out of business.

Jesse0016 , RDNE Stock project/pexels Report

Final score:
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#14

30 People Recall The Most Blatant Cases Of Favoritism They’ve Ever Witnessed So, for a while, my dad decided that he could get more work out of us if he got us to compete to be named his favorite.

Basically the rules he laid out were that if you did something good enough, you were there favorite until someone else did something, and there was some kind of ill-defined benefit to being the favorite that he hadn't decided on yet.

Fast forward a bit, and he had f****d up his company web site because he was experimenting in the production environment like an idiot. He asked me for help, so I did.

He didn't let me touch anything, and insisted I stand there while he fiddled with random controls in Drupal hoping to stumble across the right one because he's afraid of reading logs. That took a few hours. Then he went to the bathroom and I checked the logs, which led me right to the problem, so I fixed it. It definitely saved him time, probably saved him money, and possibly saved his job. I was named favorite.

10 minutes later, my sister comes in from mowing the lawn and now she's the favorite.

It wasn't really a big deal. The only benefit of being the favorite for my brother and I was that he wouldn't insult you for not being the favorite. When I was favorite though, he still made fun of me for being at his beck and call. My sister got things like hugs and pats on the back when she was the favorite, but fewer when she wasn't.

Shortly after the web site incident, we all decided that the whole thing was stupid and agreed not to do anything special for him in the hopes that he'd forget about the whole thing. Instead he got angry that we weren't climbing over each other to do him favors. At first he just lowered the bar for "good deeds", so we just stopped doing anything for him at all.

He got pissed that we weren't competing, so he announced that my sister was favorite again because I didn't buy him a soda and he wanted me to defend my title. Then he got angry that nobody cared. Then he sat in his chair and grumbled about that for a while, and he's mostly dropped it. Sometimes, he tries to bring it back, but it hasn't worked.

So, lessons learned:

* My sister is, and has always been, the real favorite.
* If you want people to compete, there needs to be something they all want to compete for.
* Something about either collusion or collective bargaining, depending on how you want to spin it. In any case, Apes together strong.

Aperture_T , Gustavo Fring/pexels Report

Final score:
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BeesEelsAndPups
BeesEelsAndPups
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1 month ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Huh. I have a similar system for my kids. Everytime they do something good, they get awesome points. The things is, points are shared. So you turn in awesome points for a day at the zoo, everybody goes. Want it for videogame time, everybody plays. It ended up building a lot of teamwork. I will hear things like "if we clean up our room now we can get ice cream, c'mon I'll help". Hell, I help too because I really want ice cream. And honestly, the teamwork is better than getting the room clean.

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#15

When I was in grade 5, we had a music teacher that brought guitars in for everyone. I was a natural, and so I begged my mom to get me a guitar for Christmas.

Every year for five years straight I asked for a guitar on Christmas and my birthday. On the sixth Christmas, I saw what was clearly a guitar shaped box under the tree. I remember actually being so excited because I was finally getting it, and they had actually gone out of their way to surprise me with it.

And then, I sat there and watched as they handed it to my older brother.

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#16

30 People Recall The Most Blatant Cases Of Favoritism They’ve Ever Witnessed My friend is the middle child he had to find a job when he was 16 to pay for his car by himself, work full time through college to pay for it by himself, and had to pay for his new house and his parents didnt offer any help in fact they packed up all his stuff while he was at work and dropped it off in his garage and said good luck. While his siblings did not have to work in high school or college, parents paid for their cars and paid for most of their college when his older brother got a house they offered to help pay.

iiSagez , Soudha J. /pexels Report

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#17

30 People Recall The Most Blatant Cases Of Favoritism They’ve Ever Witnessed One of my professors was the same ethnicity as me and 2 other of my classmates. He always talked to me and the other 2 in our three hour lab and straight up told me in our shared language, “I help out my people. I don’t really help the white kids because they get enough help from everyone else in their lives”. I ended up getting an undeserved A in his class.

andy_wait_up , Mikhail Nilov/pexels Report

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#18

30 People Recall The Most Blatant Cases Of Favoritism They’ve Ever Witnessed When I was in high school, my dad had a very public affair and my mom kicked him out of the house. A few days later, he sent an email to the whole family begging us to let him back in the house. He had a line for each kid in the email. My brother and I got a few sentences saying that he missed us, etc. However, he wrote an entire paragraph to my sister, starting with "I have always had the best connection with you out of all my children..."

i've since cut him off completely but that still stings a little, 7 years later.

bi_ochemist , Nicola Barts/pexels Report

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#19

30 People Recall The Most Blatant Cases Of Favoritism They’ve Ever Witnessed My French teacher would tell the class who she liked and didn’t like and would give the kids she liked extra credit just for being there.

SMX--- , Christina Morillo/pexels Report

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#20

30 People Recall The Most Blatant Cases Of Favoritism They’ve Ever Witnessed Coworker gets paid way more than I do because of "experience" yet I have to do their job and mine. Mind you, they can't do half of what I can because of new equipment/software. Also they can p**s off work like no tomorrow but if I have to take a personal day, I come back with worked piled up on my desk just because. Basically, they get away with everything and somehow I get blamed or reprimanded.

buttercuphopscotch , Alena Darmel /pexels Report

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WindySwede
WindySwede
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1 month ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Change job? Just quit on the day when you got new job!

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#21

30 People Recall The Most Blatant Cases Of Favoritism They’ve Ever Witnessed A girl I was friends with in high school was the middle child in a VERY wealthy family. The parents clearly favored the older sister and younger brother. The older sister got extensive cosmetic dentistry work done and the younger brother got braces. The middle child wasn’t taken to see a dentist for 5 years at one point; all while the other dentistry work was going on with her two siblings. The parents truly just ignored her and let the other siblings walk all over her.

sbankss , MART PRODUCTION /pexels Report

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Miss Mali
Miss Mali
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1 month ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Why do these people even have more children than they can divide their attention equally to. It makes zero sense and these poor kids have to suffer this kind of neglect.

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#22

In high school my sister was on the debate team. They would travel around and debate other school’s teams. It was all good fun, went out for pizza after no matter if they won or lost etc.

This year it was an exceptionally good team. They were just blazing through the opposition, had never lost. Then they were up against a prestigious private school’s team. Normally the contested are judged by representatives from both schools, with disagreements adjudicated by a neutral third part who reviews footage of the debate.

My sister’s team absolutely smoked them. Like, there was no question that the public school had won. But the representative from our school couldn’t make it at the last minute, so it was only the representative from the prestigious school judging, who announced that their school’s team had won. There was no way a school that charged enormous fees could stand the humiliation of being beaten by public school kids. The other team absolutely knew it too. They were all looking at the ground, and the captain actually apologised as he was shaking the hand of our members.

By mutual agreement the entire team disbanded after that match. There didn’t seem to be any point in competing any more when the winner was determined by postcode rather than skill.

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Sue User
Sue User
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1 month ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Was on the math team. We competed by being given math problems and scoring points. My junior year, our team beat the private school and got to go to the regionals. So proud.

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#23

30 People Recall The Most Blatant Cases Of Favoritism They’ve Ever Witnessed Once my step mom started dating my mom, they took care of my little sister and little brother more than me. New clothes, winter gear, game systems, TVs in their room, they got to eat out, huge allowances, and candy when ever they wanted. I got my mom's old clothes or had to buy my own with what little allowance I got, I had to use old socks for gloves in the winter, all I got for entertainment was books, never got to eat out unless I was with my dad, I was forbidden to have sweets, and I had to cook my own food.

LyricalMinx , Sofia Alejandra/pexels Report

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WindySwede
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1 month ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

And sibling will say, "we had the same mom, how can you ....[insert something here] ... ?

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#24

30 People Recall The Most Blatant Cases Of Favoritism They’ve Ever Witnessed My brother got everything he ever asked for. Brand new PCs or phones. His drivers license. A new car.

You name it and he got it all. Meanwhile I was wearing hand me downs, Had an old Nokia 3310 (This was about when Apple launched the first Iphone) and had to work after school to afford getting my license, paying for school trips and buying a PC for school.


She still to this day denies favoring him.

TheSlowToad , Any Lane/pexels Report

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#25

Had a step brother who was my same age. He asked my stepmom if he could spend the night at a friend's house and she said yes. I then asked her the same question and she said no. I complained that other kid got to go and said it was unfair, so she grounded me. That was 23 years ago and I'm still bitter.

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#26

30 People Recall The Most Blatant Cases Of Favoritism They’ve Ever Witnessed In my school a kid got put into the top class despite his grades being very bad. He was a relative of the school board chairman.

rance_kun , RDNE Stock project/pexels Report

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Skogsrået
Skogsrået
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1 month ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Wow, this was really a case of " It's not about what you know, it's about WHO you know ".

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#27

30 People Recall The Most Blatant Cases Of Favoritism They’ve Ever Witnessed I once got a birthday card, no other presents, from my parents that said, "we couldn't afford to get you an iPod" and then, inside, said, "...so we got you a pea pod!"

My brother got an iPod.

Fade_To_Blackout , .angels./flickr Report

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#28

30 People Recall The Most Blatant Cases Of Favoritism They’ve Ever Witnessed Former teacher here; new coworker assaulted a special needs student and got suspended for the remainder of the school year, the racist principal brought him back and gave him a different yet better position. That year he let go 15 individuals all the same race that didn’t match the principals and hired more than 10 new teachers the same race as the principal.

triplebattery , Christina Morillo/pexels Report

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Cee Cee
Cee Cee
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1 month ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Where on earth was this? OP should have raised this with the appropriate authorities. Racism is vile.

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#29

Way back in elementary school, I had three classmates ("Kim", "Kelli", and "Kristi") whose mothers handled all of our classroom parties. We always had an egg hunt around Easter. The three students who found the most eggs won chocolate bunnies. We had about thirty kids in our class, and all of us were to bring in three eggs to be hidden. The teacher would pull down the window shades so we couldn't look outside to see where the moms hid the eggs on the playground. Every year, from kindergarten through 6th grade, those three classmates *always* found the most eggs, up to a dozen each usually, while the rest of us rarely found more than one or two. Some never found any. The girls eventually confessed that their moms told them they would hide piles of eggs behind specific trees near the doors while telling the whole class, "The eggs can be anywhere on the playground!" One year, a boy found an egg that would have put his total in the running to get a chocolate bunny; he was told it didn't count because the moms didn't "remember hiding that one", so the bunny went to "Kristi".

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#30

My 10th grade English teacher told our entire class that she always made sure to give the 5 Asian students in our class higher grades on assignments because “they didn’t speak English that well.” All 5 of them spoke perfect English, had been in our school district for years, and I think all but one were born in America. It was also an Advanced English class.

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Kathrin Pukowsky
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1 month ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Don't attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity, I guess.

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