A Fontana, California middle school teacher was caught on video repeatedly using a racial slur in class and encouraging a student to read aloud the n-word contained in a Mark Twain novel.
The incident, according to Los Angeles news station ABC7, took place at Sequoia Middle School, part of the Fontana Unified School District, during a discussion about the American author's novel. According to the television channel, one student asked how to spell the racial slur when first coming into it.
The unidentified language arts teacher was then filmed by a student as she repeatedly used the n-word and said that it was simply another word in the English language.
"The teacher got in front of the class and she was saying that the word is just an English word and everybody can say it if she wants to, it's in the dictionary, and people are oversensitive over the word," the student who shot the video on her phone told ABC7.
The student, who asked to remain anonymous, said that the teacher then encouraged a student to use the racial slur too.
"She was trying to force him to say the word and she repeatedly kept saying it and she had a smirk on her face. I was just thinking, 'Dang, this teacher is out of her mind,'" she said.
According to the student, the teacher used the racial slur "a lot of time, probably 15 or more."
The video was shared by the news channel on TikTok. In the clip, the teacher can be heard telling the student "Say it. N*****. Why? You're asking me, so go ahead and pronounce it: N*****."
Fontana Unified School District said in a statement to the news channel: "While we acknowledge that this derogatory language comes from a novel first published in the late 1800s, and that historical context is important to consider when discussing literature, the district does not condone the language that was used in the video or using that language outside of the context of discussing the novel."
While reports don't mention exactly which one of Twain's novels the students were reading, the author uses the same racial slur repeated by the California teacher in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The novel, first published in 1885, was immediately controversial because of the irreverent way in which it talked about authority and religion. Now 138 years later, the novel still sparks debate over whether the n-word should be removed from the novel or replaced.
Newsweek reached out to Sequoia Middle School via email for comment.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Giulia Carbonaro is a Newsweek Reporter based in London, U.K. Her focus is on U.S. and European politics, global affairs ... Read more
