Teacher Recorded Repeatedly Saying N-Word, Urging Student To Say It
A California Language Arts teacher is under fire after a video was discovered of her repeatedly using the N-word during a lesson, and encouraging her eighth graders to say the slur. The educator, who is unnamed as of now, works at Sequoia Middle School in Pleasant Hill, Calif.
According to the anonymous Black student that recorded the incident, the class was in the middle of a discussion about Mark Twain’s 1884 novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, where the word appears. Allegedly, another student asked the teacher how to spell it and that’s when the teacher began to use the word over and over and ask him to say it, ABC 7 Los Angeles reports.
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“The teacher got in front of the class and she was saying that the word is just an English word and everybody can say it if she wants to,” the student told the outlet. The student also claimed that the teacher’s excuse was that “people are oversensitive over the word.”
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“She was trying to force him to say the word,” the student stated about the “out of her mind” teacher.“ She repeatedly kept saying it and she had a smirk on her face.”
In the video, the teacher can be seen standing in front of another student’s desk, while encouraging him to “Say it. Ni**er.”
With a grin, she continues to taunt the student, saying, “Why? You’re asking me, so go ahead and pronounce it: Ni**er.” The rest of the class laughs as the student is silent.
She continues, “Pronounce it after me. Ni**er.”
According to the witness, the teacher said “Ni**er” over 15 times. See below.
The parent of the student who recorded the video uploaded it to her Facebook, where she received a ton of feedback.
“This took place at my Daughters school in Fontana at Sequoia Middle School teacher,” parent Bianca Gibbons wrote on FB on March 31. “Repost please stop racism and verbal violence bullying. This teacher should be fired, please help share this.”
Officials from the Fontana School District have stated on their official website that they were aware of an “unfortunate exchange” that took place between the teacher and student about a “racially insensitive word.”
The statement continues, “While the use of the word was in connection to its use in a historical literary work, there was a lack of understanding regarding the emotional impact of using this word could have on our students,” Superintendent Miki Inbody wrote.
“We take such incidents very seriously and we are committed to ensuring that our learning environment is inclusive and welcoming for all students. We want to assure you that we do not tolerate any form of discrimination or prejudice in our school and we are taking steps to address this issue and prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.”
Watch the disturbing video above.
