White Math Teacher Filmed Doing Racist Native American Stereotype Dance For Trig Lesson

Photo via @corn_maiden_designs/Instagram

October 21, 2021, 2:51 pm

A white math teacher baffled and horrified a nation after she was filmed by a Native American student donning a paper headdress and performing an incredibly offensive imitation of what she thought was an indigenous tribal dance, complete with “war hooping & tomahawk chopping.” The video was sent to anti-racist activists and was soon going viral on social media, resulting in a collective jaw-dropping among people who haven’t been living under a rock for the past 20 years or so.

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The teacher has been identified as Candace Reed of John W. North High School in Riverside, California, and has reportedly been giving this performance to her students yearly since 2012 in order to help them memorize the three main functions of trigonometry as a mnemonic device: SOHCAHTOA. Apparently, math teachers have been telling kids about the “Legend of Sohcahtoa” for quite some time, using racist stereotypes of Native American storytelling to help them memorize something that could easily be found with a simple internet search.

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Reed, however, decided to take this to new racist heights.

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Yesterday a Native American student filmed this video in his Math class. After several minutes of the teacher “war hooping & tomahawk chopping” the student began filming because he, “felt that violence was being committed against him and he had the right to record.” pic.twitter.com/4zvFS6JfPw

— Iviviq ᐃᕕᕕᖅ (@UrbanInuk) October 21, 2021

The video starts with Reed doing what looks like stereotypical “tomahawk chops” and it sounds like she even says the word “tomahawk” right at the beginning before she starts chanting “SOHCAHTOA” and launches into a dance that is almost physically painful to watch. In the background, she displays slides containing crude stick figure images of Native Americans with feathers sticking out of their heads and what looks like badly-drawn tipis. Nervous laughter can be heard from the students who are probably vastly more educated on racism than she is.

The Native student who filmed this performance said that he only got his phone out after enduring several minutes of racism and “felt that violence was being committed against him and he had the right to record.” In additional footage posted on Twitter, one student can be seen putting their head down on their desk as though they can’t bear to watch anymore, and who can blame them?

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The video appears to have been first shared on Instagram on Wednesday by Native American activist Akalei Brown after the student’s family sent her the video. Brown posted the footage with information about the school and a statement urging people to share and contact the district to complain.

“We need to end abuse & discrimination against indigenous youth in schools!” she wrote. “There is no excuse for this type of behavior. We’re not in the 1960s anymore, she should know better.”

Many viewers of the video feel the same way, expressing shock that anyone would do this in front of a room full of students while on the job and not realize that it might be considered offensive in the year 2021, after years of controversy over racist sports team names. Native American commenters, however, were often not surprised at all.

Neither the school nor Reed appear to have yet made a statement on the video, but it’s generally expected that she will face serious consequences for, at best, being woefully clueless on the absolute basics of racial sensitivity.

Just found out this was filmed in riverside which makes it sting more. Sherman Indian high school is also there, it was one of the last Indian boarding schools that now serves California Indian students. This is direct violence on our California Native youth https://t.co/naGDtWENqy

— rue (@FRlDAKHALIFA) October 21, 2021

On closer review, she was teaching a math class, trigonometry. A friend once joked that you can’t decolonize math. Joke’s on you, buddy. https://t.co/srW4k0D6FD

— Nick Estes (@nickwestes) October 21, 2021

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I wish non-Natives would also stop being surprised that things like this still happen. We see the effects in how comfortable adults are with using racist terminology or appropriation like “powwow” for meeting or “bottom of the totem pole” for something unimportant. https://t.co/yWNwVEPc9G

— Tonya Song @ BLFC (@Tonya_Song) October 21, 2021

It’s 2021 y’all. This crap still happens in our classrooms. If you’re wondering why a microbiologist spends so much of her time tweeting about Indigenous issues, it’s because IT’S 20-FREAKING 21 & CRAP LIKE THIS STILL HAPPENS IN OUR CLASSROOMS. I’d much rather focus on microbes. https://t.co/h4fpeSNO86

— Dr. Kat Milligan-Myhre (@Napaaqtuk) October 21, 2021

What the actual fu*k? I never learned racism in math. Geezus.

— Brizburk (@sninalthat) October 21, 2021

The worst thing is the teacher probably didn’t even think this was disrespectful or offensive. Completely oblivious as the kids watch, aghast and alarmed. Oblivious, as she grew up in a cultural bubble

— Dangerously Talented (@Dangerouslytal) October 21, 2021

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The levels of pedagogical failure here are enormous, including the fact that the whole thing is a complete distraction from math.

This isn’t teaching. It’s colonial violence. And it exemplifies the barriers students face in getting to be excited about the universe. https://t.co/7tTTJIyJK3

— The Disordered Cosmos by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein (@IBJIYONGI) October 21, 2021

White women: We don’t want Critical Race Theory taught to our kids because it will make them feel bad for being white

Also, White women: SOH CAH TOA, SOH CAH TOA, SOH CAH TOA, SOH CAH TOA, SOH CAH TOA, SOH CAH TOA https://t.co/P1yZU9RMIE

— I Am Not Your Negroliberal (@negroliberals) October 21, 2021

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*First Published: October 21, 2021, 2:51 pm