— Feature, Musings —11.04.2019 09:47 PM
That’s how you do it, Canada
You don’t hire him again. You suspend him.
A high school teacher has been placed on administrative leave in California after he wore blackface to school on Halloween, according to the Milpitas Unified School District.
A video posted on social media shows the teacher with his face painted black and dressed up in an apparent attempt to imitate the rapper Common.
Milpitas High School Principal Francis Rojas and MUSD Superintendent Cheryl Jordan said in a statement that the teacher, who has not been named, was suspended and now is under investigation for the “disparaging” act.
“In a school community where we welcome learners and families from over 50 languages who represent cultures and religions throughout the world, and where our long-standing neighborhood, Sunnyhills, was established as the first city in the nation for planned integration, it hurts to know that this type of cultural insensitivity and lack of cultural awareness still hovers in the background,” reads the statement.
Chris Norwood, the MUSD school board president, called the teacher’s actions “inappropriate, unprofessional and insensitive,” according to an online statement.
“As an African American man, the history of Blackface reminds me of the cruelty, hatred and fear my parents and people of African Ancestry have dealt with in the past and still experience today around the world,” Norwood said.
The Dauphin had been “hired” before we knew about his recurring theme of lack of good judgement (I am trying to be generous). Unfortunately, the ones who had to power to suspend him (Liberal caucus) had already decided two things.
First, they chose not to follow the Reform Act 2014, which required that they adopt the power to replace the leader.
Second, the Liberal caucus was bereft of individuals who put good judgement ahead of re-election. The only two members of the Liberal caucus who exercised anything approximating good judgement were summarily turfed before the Dauphin’s pattern of poor choices became apparent.
All of which led to the decision by enough people, properly distributed across this fair nation, to re-hire him. What a sad state of affairs that Canadians as a whole need to be taught lessons by a school board in California.