Teacher Abuse has no Color

Well, I must have been under a rock to miss this little gem. The link is here: http://www.abcnews4.com/news/stories/0806/356376.html, but a brief summary this: a white teacher sued the school district in which she worked because the students (black) cursed at her, calling her white c__, white MF, etc. etc. and apparently the school did nothing about it. How interesting that she sued. Why wasn’t this make more prevalent in the news? I’ll tell you why – because the teacher was white and the students were black.

As a former teacher, let me tell you, I’ve seen cases in which students were rude, verbally insulting and threatening, scratched teachers cars (for no reason), and pushed teachers in the hallway – not in an overt hands on the shoulders push, but a rude shouldering aside.

This case is important to teachers as it shows exactly how much bad behavior is tolerated from students because of either their race or their socio-economic circumstances. It’s as if the bar is lowered: you are allowed to act in a totally inhumane way towards another human being because you’re poor or black or both. Shame on these administrators to allow such hostile environment to proliferate in their school. Shame on these other teachers, black and white, for not banding together and demanding some sort of relief from this behavior. Why should teachers, who are there for the benefit of these children, be subjected to such abuse? Animals at zoos are treated better than this.

Why are we as a society are so worried about what a raggedy headed white DJ is saying about a women’s basketball team ( a one shot deal) when urban teachers are abused on a daily basis and (some) administrators turn their heads – fearful of having too many violence/vandalism reports for that month?

Why too, is this teacher mocked and made fun of (in some black circles) because she is white? Does that make her any less prone to suffering at the hands of these rude, nasty students. According to her, there were other teachers (black and white) suffering the same daily abuse – she just happened to be the one to bring a lawsuit.

Either way this speaks volumes about the state of urban education today. Because these students were black and poor, their nasty and abusive behavior was tolerated because it was “part of their culture”. Well, most certainly I am black, and foul language does not pour freely from my mouth on a regular basis. Therefore to denote the regular use of profanity as a part of black culture insults me.