California Teacher Uses Racial Slur During Class, Asks A Student To Repeat After Her
A California teacher was under fire after being caught on video saying a racial slur during a class, and allegedly forcing a student to repeat after her.
The unidentified English teacher at Sequoia Middle School in Fontana was giving lessons on a Mark Twain novel when a student asked how to spell the N-word. To this, the teacher replied that anybody could use the word and that people were meaninglessly oversensitive about it, ABC 7 reported.
"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, it's in the dictionary, and people are oversensitive over the word," said the unidentified student, who recorded the video on her phone.
"She was trying to force him to say the word and she repeatedly kept saying it and she had a smirk on her face," said the African-American student.
"Say it!" the teacher can be heard saying in the video. "You asked me how to spell it, so go ahead and pronounce it. N*****. Pronounce it after me, n*****," the teacher was overheard saying in the video, as per Raw Story.
The student told ABC 7 the teacher used the racial slur a number of times.
The Fontana Unified School District responded to the video in question and issued a statement that read in part: "While we acknowledge that this derogatory language comes from a novel first published in the late 1800s, and that historical context is important to consider when discussing literature, the district does not condone the language that was used in the video or using that language outside of the context of discussing the novel,'" as per ABC 7.
The school district didn't mention if they have yet taken any actions against the teacher in question.
"Not acceptable," Caroline Rivera, the mother of two pupils at the school, told ABC 7. "Pulling the teacher out? Maybe going through training again?"
In a similar incident, a Louisiana School Secretary resigned in January after she referred to Martin Luther King Jr. Day in a derogatory manner and also called the federal holiday a [N-word] day. She used the word while texting the school coach and the thread was made public, leading to a huge public outcry and eventually her resignation.
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