Substitute uses racist phrase toward Black student, prompting protest, MI video shows
_fitted.png "Videos show the aftermath of the substitute teacher using racist language towards a 16-year-old student.")
After a teacher at a Michigan high school directed a racist remark toward a student during class, many students then walked out in protest, videos from the incident show.
On Feb. 10, the substitute teacher was working at Farmington High School when the incident happened.
“I was touching the teacher’s mic. I probably shouldn’t have been doing it,” Keichean Wilson, a 16-year-old high school student, told Fox 2. “She says to me, ‘Get your cotton picking hands off of that.’”
The teacher’s racist remark to Wilson, who is Black, was recorded. The remark has historical ties to slavery.
She can be heard in the recording repeating the racist language again when Wilson asks what she said.
“I don’t think I comprehended what she said at first, and then she repeated it,” Wilson told the news outlet. “You cannot say that. That’s really bad. So then she goes, ‘It’s an old saying that we used to say,’ and so I go, ‘Who do you think they said it to?’”
In the recording, she defends the comment, saying it was “very common and very innocent.”
“It’s not meant to be offensive in any way and you know what? In listening to what you’re — the grumbling and what you’re saying to me. I can understand now why it might be, but it wasn’t meant to hurt,” the teacher said in the audio provided to WDIV.
The students then walked out of school in protest, videos show.
They chanted “Black lives matter” as they marched to the superintendent’s office to voice their concerns, WXYZ reported.
According to the news outlet, a letter was sent to parents saying the substitute teacher would not return to any school in the Farmington School District.
“While we can conduct background checks and fingerprint for substitute teachers, we cannot screen for what’s in their hearts and minds,” Superintendent Christopher J. Delgado told WXYZ. “If you harbor racist feelings and do not embrace our diversity as a strength, do not apply to Farmington Public Schools.”
Keiona Turner, a parent of a tenth-grader at the school who participated in the walkout, told WXYZ she is glad students made their voices heard.
“I’m proud of the students who took a stand and decided that they were tired of hearing racists things,” she said.
Farmington is a suburb of Detroit.
This story was originally published February 11, 2022 at 2:35 PM with the headline "Substitute uses racist phrase toward Black student, prompting protest, MI video shows."
