Middle School Teacher Suspended After Allowing Student To Dress As KKK Grand Wizard
A teacher from Pulaski County, Ky. was suspended upon a school district investigation into a horrible occurrence in her classroom. According to CBS 4 News, she allowed the student to dress in a KKK costume for a history project.
A video surfaced of a middle school student riding the school bus dressed in a KKK hood and robe. The report says the student asked if they could dress up as Confederate army general Nathan Bedford Forest, the OG Ku Klux Klan grand wizard. Allegedly, he was given permission by his teacher to do so for extra credit on an assignment given last week. One student who was in the classroom didn’t see the big deal.
“There was no racist movement behind it. I mean there was Black kids in the classroom, they all thought it was good. Nobody felt targeted,” said one student to LEX 18. “You can’t be mad over a school assignment that teaches history. You have to learn history to make sure you don’t redo it.”
The KKK is a domestic terrorist organization founded after the Civil War that used intimidation, violence, and murder to maintain white supremacy in the South, according to the National Geographic Society.
The student in question has not faced disciplinary action but the same cannot be said for the teacher. She’s been suspended upon the investigation by the Pulaski County school district.
Read more from LEX 18:
Aside from being suspended while they investigate, Pulaski County Superintendent Patrick Richardson said the situation will be reported to the Educational Professional Standards Board.
“It sickens me that this has occurred,” Richardson told LEX18. “It embarrassed not only me but our school district and community. I’m angered by the lack of thoughtfulness that went into this situation.”
Whit Whitaker from the Lexington Fayette NAACP branch condemned the actions of both the student and the teacher. Though, he said this behavior is nothing new.
“This is stuff the country endorses. It has happened in Pittsburgh schools, happened in California, happened in Texas,” said Whitaker.
Even if the intentions of this incident were not malicious, the costume was certainly offensive to students, parents, and grandparents. While history is important, images representing certain vile-despicable-bigoted historical figures who endorsed the killing and terrorizing of Black people … can be quite triggering.
Feature image via Shutterstock (It is not an image of the student involved)