FORT WORTH, Texas — Reaction to a viral video of a Fort Worth high school student using racial slurs in a classroom presentation has included outrage and calls for the teacher’s firing.
Paschal High School and the Fort Worth school district are investigating the incident that occurred in a Paschal classroom, calling it “inexcusable.”
Fort Worth school district Superintendent Kent Scribner called the video “inexcusable.” He said “there is no place for this kind of language in our society” and that he is recommending to the school board that the teacher be fired.
Some on Twitter and Facebook have been reposting unedited versions of the video that appears to show a Paschal student saying the slur several times while presenting an interpretation of “Romeo and Juliet.”
At the beginning of the video, when introducing the student to the class before his presentation, the teacher in the classroom says that “the point is not to be offensive, it’s his interpretation.”
Most on social media seem to be calling for the teacher to be punished with some saying the identity of the student in the video should be made public. Many have called the video disgusting.
“Let’s make him famous,” one Facebook user said in a post sharing the unedited version of the video. “He was very aware of how offensive, racist and wrong his paper was going to be yet he proceeded.”
One woman called for all the students in the class to be punished as well.
“ ... The student reading it should also be accountable as well as the class for laughing,” she wrote in a comment to the school district’s Facebook post regarding the incident.
“This can be a cold hateful world but we have to hold people responsible in and out!” another person said in the comments.
Several commenters said the parents of the child should be embarrassed. Others said the teacher shouldn’t be fired for something the student said.
“Kick the student out!” one Facebook user said in a comment to the school district’s post.
Another user on Facebook said that there should be equal outrage for the use of another slur about white people in the video, and some said nobody should be punished if the assignment was to present a period-accurate interpretation of a scene from “Romeo and Juliet.”
Another reply to Scribner’s statement posted on Twitter said the presentation was part of a lesson on how poorly slaves were treated in America.
The teacher at one point interrupts to say that students aren’t supposed to “set this to pre-Civil War” and that they are supposed to stay “true to the source material” before allowing the student to continue.
At the end of the video, it appears most students clapped while some said to stop clapping.
“I’m not clapping for that,” one of the students appears to say. “That’s literally racist.”
