Teacher passed out cotton for history lesson, leading to racist jokes, NAACP leader says
Multiple students reported feeling humiliated after racist jokes followed a Virginia high school history lesson involving cotton, a local NAACP leader said.
As part of a Dec. 5 discussion on the invention of the cotton gin and enslavement, a Riverside High School teacher passed around a piece of raw cotton, Loudoun County Public Schools said in a statement shared with McClatchy News.
Loudoun County NAACP President Pastor Michelle Thomas told local news outlets parents reached out to her about the lesson after their kids said it led to jokes about the enslavement of Black people.
“It was humiliating and deeply embarrassing for the students involved,” Thomas told WUSA.
The school’s principal sent a letter to parents of students in the class to let them know of the situation, WDVM reported.
“Some students in the class may have used the situation as a way to act in an insensitive manner,” he said in the letter. “We will discuss the incident with students and members of our DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility) Team in the near future.”
Thomas said the lesson was “of poor taste and judgement” and “culturally insensitive,” WUSA reported.
The school district said it is aware that the lesson upset some students and is not what they believe the teacher hoped to accomplish in the classroom.
“It is the division’s intention to achieve a safe and inclusive learning environment for all students,” the school district said in a statement. “That is not what happened here and we must and will do better.”
According to the district, policies require parents to be notified in advance of the discussion of sensitive topics in the classroom, but that did not happen in this case.
The school system “will work with any students impacted by this lesson to ensure they have the support they need moving forward,” the statement said.
This story was originally published December 13, 2024 at 5:24 PM with the headline "Teacher passed out cotton for history lesson, leading to racist jokes, NAACP leader says."
