The question about the statistical trend of more suspensions of black kids is separate from the irrationality of assuming that this mother's anecdotes reveal racism by her son's teachers. I addressed the latter above. They two are relate only in that any rational analysis of either requires considering the countless other factors that could impact suspension decisions. With the anecdote, the factors are boundless because they need not have any correlation to the race of the kids at all.
With the research stats, the factors are numerous but bounded by the requirement that they have some correlation with race in order to explain the differences in probability. However, that still leaves many many dozens of highly plausible factors generally known to impact such perceptions and judgments. Note that the causal factors might be related to the kids' actions before, during, or after the event, or not all related to these and instead related to the parents actions before, during, or after the event, differences in the teachers, the school, the other kids in the class, the class sizes, the classroom environment, and on and on.
Here is a very short list of plausible factors that we know correlate with race and that existing research predicts would ultimate impact suspension rates:
1) Single parent
2) Young mother
3) Parental incarceration
4) financial stress
5) Parental education
6) Amount and quality of daycare prior to preschool.
Note that these factors and many others could differ between anyone involved in the suspension incident including the suspended child, their classmates, the parents, the teachers, and the administrators. Less well trained teachers and administrators are more likely to create environments that create behavior problems plus react to problems with suspensions when not warranted.
I would bet that black pre-schoolers go to schools and have teachers where these factors come into play not only for themselves and their parents but their teachers, classmates, and schools. I would bet that black pre-schoolers are much more likely to have black teachers and that they are doing much of the suspending. Are the black teachers racist against black kids or are they on average less trained to handle the situation. Or maybe teachers of different races handle the situations differently for cultural reasons related to their own parenting style since more punishment oriented authoritarian styles are more frequent among blacks (which could itself be largely an SES thing since lower SES tend to be more authoritarian).
Is racism by teachers and administrators a partial contributor to the differential suspension rates? Certainly it is plausible and perhaps even likely in some subset of cases, but it likely it is a minor contributor overall given all the many factors that are predicted to create differential suspension rates, even if no such teacher racism existed or even if teachers bent over backwards to be biased in favor of their black students. Thus, for any single incident, like that of the OP mother, the odds are higher that is was one or more of these many other factors and not teacher racism.
Based on my experience with preschoolers and parties: usually, the kids invited to the party all are from the same preschool kindergarten class, with perhaps a neighbor child who isn't in the same class added into the mix. It is a good assumption that the kids are all in the same class.
I find it ludicrous to suggest that only a small subset of school suspensions are due to racism on the part of teachers and administrators.
I lived in the upper midwest for more than 20 years. It is where most of my kids were raised; two of them started preschool here and they all attended elementary school, middle and high school and university in the upper midwest. I spent a great deal of time working as a volunteer in all of their schools and also worked in an anti-poverty program which was directed at preschoolers and their families. Being the upper midwest, the population is almost entirely white, with immigrants from S.E. Asia and Native Americans outnumbering blacks in the smaller towns where I raised my kids.
The only setting where I did not personally witness racial profiling and racism was in the anti-poverty program, which actually served only one black family, one Hispanic family, a handful of recent immigrants from S.E. Asia, with the rest being white children and families, almost all of whom had lived in this area for several generations. It was a specific core principle of the program and the preschool to respect and celebrate diversity and they did that well.
In the other school settings, the racism was usually much more subtle and mostly took the form of some seemingly benign assumptions that black and Native American children are less academically prepared, are more likely to come from broken homes, are more likely to have behavior problems. This assumption was attached to the child perceived to be black or Native American without regard to the actual preparedness or behavior of the child himself. Black children, especially male, were judged more harshly in terms of small misbehaviors. The children of certain well known, well connected white families were given every break there was, including placement in advanced classes. Among the more 'benign' behaviors was a tendency to 'feel sorry' for students of color,quiet clucks of tongues bemoaning how much ground they had to make up! Even when the child was the offspring of two black university professors holding advanced degrees. Worse was the assumption that kids of color were gang bangers as was any black male over the age of 10 seen walking around the neighborhoods.
My kids noticed quickly that racism on the part of other white students against black, Native or Asian students was basically ignored by white administrators in the high school. This included wearing some fairly racist t-shirts.
It isn't at all surprising to me that the upper Midwest has some of the greatest disparities in educational outcomes between white and black students. No one burns crosses or pickets if a black child shows up in class. They just feel sorry for the kid and channel them into remedial classes that are not needed or appropriate--because of the assumption that the kid is behind the other kids.
Of course such assumptions are also made of any child of a single parent, especially a pretty young single mother, who is assumed to have conceived her child out of wedlock and to be on welfare regardless of the actual facts of the case. Her child is assumed to be lacking in discipline and positive male roles in his life, whether this is the case or not.
Kids generally live up to the expectations placed on them. If you expect them to do badly, they do. If you expect them to behave badly, they do.
