A Georgia high school is at the center of a racially charged incident that has since made rounds on the Internet. The viral clip, shared on Reddit, shows two teachers at a school in Macon arguing after the other wrote racially insensitive language on a classroom e-board.
Although the short video doesn’t provide major context, a female white teacher is seen in one recording writing the N-word on a projector screen. She not only wrote it once but also twice, asterisking one letter. The classroom is clearly filled with students, but the teacher doesn’t seem bothered by it.
Suddenly, a male Black teacher, presumably from the next classroom, is heard yelling, “You know you wrong,” as he storms out into the hallway to confront his colleague. He is obviously riled up by the offensive word, strongly reprimanding the White teacher while students frantically scurried around. The tension is so high that it seems a fight might break out.
The viral video has since sparked political discourse, with many slamming the female teacher, and accusing her of being Republican. “Just another MAGAt moron,” one comment read. However, this user argued party affiliations don’t matter in certain sensitive cases.
“There is absolutely zero reason for a teacher to be writing that word at all. Democrat. Republican. Whig Party. I don’t care. No excuse.”
This opened up a broader discussion, with some Redditors arguing that the teacher might have had justifiable reasons for writing the N-Word, if it was to educate her students.
“There are plenty of reasons why a teacher might want to discuss the word in an educational context. Are these kids too young to be having that depth of discussion? Yeah, probably. Was she doing this in good faith? I have no idea. Probably not,” a netizen countered.
The user @LordofSpheres on Reddit further noted that it might be difficult to discuss the history of racial discrimination in America if people were to pretend racial slurs don’t exist. Harper Lee’s classic, To Kill A Mockingbird, often read in schools was referenced to buttress the point.
Although the logic makes sense, the current climate of financial reward for public displays of racism, as in the case of the viral Rochester woman, has many on the edge of their seats.
Some argued that the woman did no wrong because she used an asterisk. “She probably just doesn’t use the internet that much. The fact that she censored the word indicates she clearly wasn’t trying to be offensive. It’s mostly just a new age social convention,” this netizen explained.
The video, no doubt, presents a dicey situation, as only the true context determines the extent of the punishment, if there should be any.
