A white elementary school teacher in Texas thought it would be a hilarious joke to take a photo of herself stepping on a Black student’s neck and send it to his mother. The rest of the boy’s family did not agree.
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The 10-year-old was reportedly misbehaving in class when the Lamar Elementary School teacher threatened to put her foot on his neck. The students in her class didn’t believe she would do it, so she staged the photo with him as a “joke.”
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Afterward, she sent the picture to his mother, who she has been friends with for years. The mother and son didn’t seem to have a problem with the incident, with the boy noting that “she didn’t put pressure on [his neck] or anything,” but other members of the family were horrified.
The child’s aunt, Lakadren Jackson, shared the photo to Facebook, calling it “unacceptable.”
“This is my nephew and his teacher and she thought it would be funny to do some s—t like this,” she wrote. “I’m pissed cause today and any other day this is not acceptable.”
The incident was reported to Greenville Independent School District, who put the teacher on leave and opened an investigation.
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“Whether the student was a willing participant or not, whether it was a staged picture or not, it was still extremely, highly inappropriate and should have have taken place and definitely should not have been photographed,” superintendent Demetrus Liggins said.
For this photo to have been taken in the same time frame as Derek Chauvin was on trial for kneeling on George Floyd’s neck until he died drew immediately and obvious comparisons. It doesn’t help that white people have repeatedly staged photos and videos recreating Floyd’s death as a “joke” for social media.
While this doesn’t seem to be that, the idea of any teacher staging a photo like this with any child, but particularly in a school setting and particularly a young Black child, is still horrifying and incredibly poorly thought out, in the most generous of interpretations.
“No matter what race, what person, you don’t put your foot on someone else’s child, period,” Jackson said.
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The family is reportedly split on whether or not they want the teacher fired.
*First Published: April 23, 2021, 6:47 am
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