An Oklahoma high school student is speaking out after recording her teacher telling students that “to be white is to be racist,” while lecturing on how to “heal the racial divide,” KFOR reports.
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The Norman North High School student said that she was shocked by the lecture, and so she pulled out her phone and started recording.
The teacher can be heard in audio saying, “To be white is to be racist, period.”
The student said that she was instantly offended by the statement.
“Half of my family is Hispanic, so I just felt like, you know, him calling me racist just because I’m white … I mean, where’s your proof in that,” she said.
As the recording continues, the teacher can be heard saying, “Am I racist? And I say yeah. I don’t want to be. It’s not like I choose to be racist, but do I do things because of the way I was raised?”
“I felt like he was encouraging people to kind of pick on people for being white,” the student said.
Her dad agreed.
“Why is it OK to demonize one race to children that you are supposed to be teaching a curriculum to?” her dad asked.
Norman Public Schools released a statement addressing the incident:
Racism is an important topic that we discuss in our schools. While discussing a variety of philosophical perspectives on culture, race and ethics, a teacher was attempting to convey to students in an elective philosophy course a perspective that had been shared at a university lecture he had attended. We regret that the discussion was poorly handled. When the district was notified of this concern it was immediately addressed. We are committed to ensuring inclusiveness in our schools. —Dr. Joe Siano, superintendent of Norman Public Schools
However, the student said she wanted an apology and wanted the teacher to make clear that what he said in class was merely his opinion.
“You start telling someone something over and over again that’s an opinion, and they start taking it as fact,” the student said. “So I wanted him to apologize and make it obvious and apparent to everyone that was his opinion.”
Read more at KFOR.
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