You can’t blame the second graders at this school for what they’ve done as they likely don’t understand much if anything of what they were doing. The act of wearing blackface is a poor decision among adults, but as an adult teaching kids to do this the act is simply deplorable to many and has sparked a great deal of outrage. While people did clap after the performance it was a nervous type of clapping, something you reserve for those acts or moments when you don’t want to be rude but aren’t entirely appreciative of what you just saw. The teacher that directed this might need to start having second thoughts first in order to avoid a moment like this ever again. Parents were mortified to see their children reciting a poem that spoke of the hardships that were faced by African Americans decades to a century ago wearing blackface.
If you didn’t already know by now, blackface is an act that was used dating back to the 1830’s by white folks that performed on the stage. The blackface was a caricature African Americans and a rather poorly presented one that gave way to horrible stereotypes throughout the years since it was created. The dark black face and comically-red lips are meant to signify the overall look of African Americans and it’s increasingly offensive. The only issue here besides the obvious is that the kids worked very hard to remember and recite a poem that many of them probably didn’t understand, but were proud to finally learn the entire way through. That small accomplishment would be hard to take away despite how parents might have felt upon seeing every child donning the blackface mask for the entirety of the piece. There’s no doubt that the school’s attempt to ‘look into it’ should come with a suspension or the termination of whoever taught the kids this bit. Not only is a harmful stereotype to be teaching to children, but it took long enough that someone should have noticed.
This really looks like the work of a teacher that’s entirely biased and wants to tell their story or has good motives but a rather horrible follow-through when it comes to their ideas. This was one of the worst ideas that could have been devised in school since quite honestly kids are dealing with enough at this point just as adults are. The racial stereotype that might not be intended but still comes across from this representation could do a lot to damage the reputation of the school. When taking into consideration that this is a charter school it might be wise of the administration to distance themselves from this incident and the person that was responsible for it. The damage has already been done and the video is already out there for people to see, but at this point damage control wouldn’t be a bad idea.
The person responsible for this kind of needs to own up to it and take their licks.
Atlanta Charter School Has Second-Graders Recite Poem While Wearing Blackface Maskshttps://t.co/faflwa8Lqe pic.twitter.com/xQgQujl62m
— BallerAlert (@balleralert) March 30, 2018
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