A Florida teacher was suspended without pay for one day last month after making inappropriate racial comments to his second-graders, the Daytona Beach News-Journal reports.
Sixty-year-old Billy C. Miles, who is black, reportedly told the class he didn't want the "black people" misbehaving in public and said to the only white child in the class: "Excuse me, white boy."
According to the child, Miles often called him "white boy" and sometimes made jokes about white people in class. A classmate said Miles sometimes told that boy to "get your white tail over here."
The teacher provided a written statement to investigators in which he admitted addressing the children in terms of black and white but denied that his comments were racial in nature.
The child singled out and embarrassed because of his color would probably beg to differ.
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"I always talk that way," Miles wrote in his statement. "Can't change color, but can change their behavior. They must change [behavior] to be successful."
If he wants to keep his job, he might want to take his own advice.
Read more at the Daytona Beach News-Journal.
In other news: Jackie O: MLK Was 'Phony' and 'Tricky.'