She could have used a rap CD.
Via Mediaite
A school principal in Washington State was suspended last week for allegedly using the n-word to explain the epithet to a group of students. Poulsbo Elementary School Principal Claudia Alves was apparently trying to teach the children the difference between the n-word and the word “negro,” and on Monday morning’s NewsOne Now, host Roland Martin defended her, saying that “This, to me, is stupid.”
According to news reports, students at the school were uncomfortable with the use of the word “negro” in a school play about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., so Alves allegedly stepped in to describe the difference between “negro” and the “n-word,” but used the actual word. She also used the word in a similar context in several followup conversations on the incident, and is now on leave, while the school is reportedly looking for an acting principal. Here’s KOMO’s report on the incident:
On Monday morning, Roland Martin blasted the suspension, exclaiming “This, to me, is stupid,” adding “If you have a teacher, who is trying to teach, and explaining the n-word and ‘negro,’ and throw in ‘colored’ and let’s say throw in ‘African American,’ why do you suspend somebody who is trying to teach?”
Yes, if only there were some way to convey the n-word, without actually using the word itself. What’s an educator to do?
Lauren Burke of Politic365.com added that “It’s just as stupid as the zero tolerance policies that you see in schools, where a kid hugs a kid, and all of a sudden the kid is suspended, it’s completely ridiculous.”
Former RNC Chariman Michael Steele agreed, saying that “we have so hyperventilated this word, the problem is that any time it is introduced, period, people just, their hair goes up on fire, and in this case, so you’re saying when it comes to talking about black folks, and the history of their narrative, and the language that (has) been used, that you cannot teach that now?”
Steele also wondered “How do we educate our own about our history, if we’re taking things off the table,” and observed that “we don’t seem to get hyperventilated with the use of it in comedy sketches, and things like that… but we get crazy when a teacher’s giving it historical context. It makes no sense.”
Panelist Ray Baker, also of Politic365.com, noted that Attorney General Eric Holder‘s comments about America’s cowardice on race “seems to be unique only to discussing race around African Americans, and that’s what’s problematic.”