High School Student Complains After Being Told to Read Poem ‘Blacker’ in Class
- Posted on March 17, 2012 at 12:38pm by
Madeleine Morgenstern
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Jordan Shumate (Image source: WJLA-TV)
School officials in Virginia are investigating after a ninth-grader said his English teacher singled him out in class and told him to read a poem “blacker.”
Jordan Shumate, who is black, told the Washington Post he was reading aloud the poem “Ballad of the Landlord” by Langston Hughes when his teacher directed him to give a “blacker” delivery.
“She told me, ‘Blacker, Jordan — c’mon, blacker. I thought you were black,’” said Shumate, a student at George C. Marhsall High School in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Fairfax, Va.
Shumate is the only black student in class, D.C. ABC affiliate WJLA-TV reported, and said the fact that he was singled out shows racial insensitivity from the teacher, whom he identified as Marilyn Bart.
He told the Post that when he refused to continue reading the poem, Bart read it aloud herself to demonstrate what she meant. The poem begins: “Landlord, landlord/My roof has sprung a leak./Don‘t you ’member I told you about it/Way last week?”
“She sounded like a maid in the 1960s,” Shumate said. “She read the poem like a slave, basically.”
He complained to his mother, he said, after his teacher used him again in a lesson about stereotypes to explain why black people like grape soda and rap music.
“We’re in 2012 with the first African American president,” Shumate’s mother, Nicole Cober Page, told WJLA. “In this era how could such a statement be made, particularly by an English teacher.”
In a statement to WJLA, Fairfax County Public Schools said it was taking the allegations seriously.
“Marshall High School administrators are taking these allegations seriously and school officials are vigorously pursuing an investigation of these incidents,” the school district said.
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Comments (128)
cmoursler
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:45pmI’d have told her “I’ll read it blacker, if you’ll read “flowers for algernon” so that we know what stupid sounds like.”
Report Post »Marine25
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 4:21pmYour “Flowers for Algernon” comment has let us all know what stupid sounds like.
Report Post »I support God's Israel!
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 5:29pmWell, what do you expect when you have the
NAACP
Black month
Martin Luther King Day, etc.
SHOVED DOWN OUR THROATS?
NOTHING LIKE RALLYING AROUND THE BLACK EXPERIENCE.
But, why don’t we have:
WHITE MONTH
NWPA (National White Persons Association)
******* Day
Whitewash Day
Kiss a white person Day
Thank a gentile day.
Salt and Pepper day (blacks and white becomes friends day)
SEE HOW RIDICULOUS THIS ALL SOUNDS??????
GEEZ, being politically correct IS SIMPLY RIDICULOUS. Black is black. White is white.
Report Post »THERE ISN’T ANY COLOR IN HEAVEN. There shouldn’t be here, on earth.
cmoursler
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 6:28pmand why is that? Have you read the story? I didn’t think so. I don‘t think the young man needs to read it blacker anymore than I need to write something ’whiter’. It was a stupid comment to make. Does she mean he needs to sound uneducated? What is she trying to say. Since you, marine25, are sooo intelligent, why don’t you decode the lexicon for me.
Report Post »Ballot_Box_Revolution
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 11:17pmWhy does this story not tell the race of the teacher? I can see a black teacher telling a black student to “keep it real”……i have tried to find a story with a picture of the teacher, and there is no stories that i could find that has the race of the teacher, or a picture of the teacher……I even looked at the fairfax county public schools (I attended those when i was younger) website to see if i could find anything on her…..came up empty…..
fishy is all i’m saying…..
Report Post »Smoovious
Posted on March 19, 2012 at 7:52pmWell, ok…
I can understand the ‘read it blacker’ comment, if the intention, was to read it in the way it was written, if it was written in a way to highlight the slang of the author at the time it was written. It can carry more weight reading poetry in the style of the author.
Writings of Mark Twain for example, loses something, if you’re pronouncing it in a snooty english royalty accent for example… (although, it might be humorous)… and if the teacher had explained it like that, then maybe it would have been ok.
But, the teacher didn’t, and this wasn’t a performance or recital, this was a class, and she got personal denigrating him for not being black enough. As if she expected him to sound stereotypical black, or house-******, or field slave, etc… just because he was black, and that’s just stupid.
Sounds like he is in the right place tho, if he is indeed the only black student there, then those people need him around to smack those stereotypes out of their heads.
Kudos to him for refusing to take it.
– Smoov
Report Post »Apple Bite
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:44pmWhat in the hell is “blacker”? Does it mean less Obama, more Donald Goines?
Report Post »Thighmaster
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:55pm“Blacker” is how it was written. The author was born Feb 1 1902 in Joplin MIssouri. Is it so wrong to read it as it was written? After all the author was “black”. If this had been read during black history week, month, whatever, I wonder how it would have been read.
Report Post »Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 2:28pmHe should have read it as Red Foxx, cuss words and all.
Report Post »Elena2010
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 2:36pmObama is not black. He’s a son of a Swahili Coast Arab.
What’s the crack abt grape soda — I’m white and I love cold grape soda! Can’t stand rap music though — age difference LOL I’m a certified “old fart.”
Report Post »The_Jerk
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 2:42pmIf Ebonics is acceptable, why not blacker?
Report Post »Apple Bite
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 4:13pmThighmaster,
Yeah, actually, I do have a problem with it. If you want somebody to act out a character for a play, you refer to it as “get into character”, not “blacker”. My persona and Bernie Mac’s persona are different, if that teacher told me to be “blacker” I would have asked her what the hell she was talking about and proceeded to insult her.
You’ll never hear anyone say read a poem “whiter”…
Report Post »Apple Bite
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 4:16pmOh yeah, my folk are from Carbondale Il. In that particular region, we’re not that damn different when it comes to talking.
Report Post »SerikFox
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 4:29pmI’ve been told to read something “whiter” before. I’ve been called ******* by a teacher before too. I just think it’s funny as hell.
Report Post »TomFerrari
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 5:01pmWhat in the hell??
Did she want him to eat fried chicken, too?
Report Post »Talk about stereotyping and racism…sheesh !!
Guess he was straying too far from the plantation for her.
Man, have we got a lot of work ahead of us !
2theADDLED
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 6:46pm@ Thighmaster
Report Post »Was it really blacker or more slavish.
Smoovious
Posted on March 19, 2012 at 7:58pmhey, don’t bring yugoslavia into this, we’re talking about “blacker”
Report Post »AmazingGrace8
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:39pmI don’t understand why this teacher had to single-out this young man. A grade-school teacher, with the permission of my parents, forced me to write right-handed because I was writing left-handed. After alot of trama & alot of other “stuff” that happened, I was left alone. You get lemons, make lemonade…today I am ambidextrous.
Report Post »Zcat
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 2:01pmtHE YEACHER obviously has a problem with his clean-cut want a better life persona1
Report Post »garylee123
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:37pm“Ah ain’t noways tiard” Hillary Clinton
Report Post »ritonmom
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:55pmLOL! OMG! Cannot stop lauging!
Report Post »thegreatcarnac
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:56pmlol…that is what I thought of….
Report Post »ritonmom
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:57pmHysterical!
Report Post »Thighmaster
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:37pmWhen the teacher axed him to read it he should have simply said Fluke you…
Report Post »KyleD
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:35pmDemocrats are the true racists and this is proof. Everyone has their own little stereotype and you can‘t escape from it unless you’re allowed to to serve their purpose.
Report Post »Itsjusttim
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:45pmWah…he said my ears are big, and that I’m stupid. But then he changed it and said they look big, and I act stupid – so that makes it alright. Well at least until the window gets shifted into making me cry when they say they “Look” big.
Itsjusttim
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:47pmIsn’t [ everything] people say just an opinion? The last time I checked it was.
Itsjusttim
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:49pmBut therein is the problem, we humans view humans as a gods, and therefore people listen to name calling like it’s the gospel.
Constructionist
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:31pmI said read it blacker… don’t make me axe you again.
Report Post »Itsjusttim
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:30pmLife is just simply far too easy for human beings.
Itsjusttim
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:31pmIt would be good for the human race to go back to the year 1.
Itsjusttim
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:37pmMother nature eventually catches up to human beings, it always does.
maccow
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:58pmITSJUSTME
Report Post »Is your send button superimposed onto your period key? If so, try a different computer. Please!
kuhl
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:27pmOne thing that is loudly overlooked here is what is the teacher’s race? If the teacher were white it would have been plastered all over. Is she perhaps Latino or (shudder) black herself?
Report Post »apojoe69
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 6:42pmYou know, It never occurred to me what color she was.
Report Post »Smoovious
Posted on March 19, 2012 at 8:00pmI don’t think it even matters what color the teacher is.
Would it be ok for her to say that if she was also black? I don’t think so.
– Smoov
Report Post »cookcountypatriot
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:26pmtypical…that racist teacher needs to be fired……if she is white…then shes a progressive white slave and needs to be fired…..our children deserve better than a union racist teaching them….fire the racists…now that social justice…
Report Post »Thighmaster
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:30pmHowever if the teacher were colored she would have simply been asking him to get in touch with his roots.
Report Post »000degrees
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:34pmMarshall High School administrators are taking these allegations seriously and school officials are vigorously pursuing an investigation of these incidents,” the school district said.
Yeah, sure they are….
Report Post »I support God's Israel!
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 5:35pmAnd you are an expert, HOW?
Racist is the word people use when THEY CAN‘T GET THEIR OWN WAY OR THEY DON’T LIKE WHAT THEY HEAR.
Civility is what we need to be towards one another. CIVIL. NO ONE IS CIVIL AND POLITE ANYMORE.
Report Post »Bernard Gui
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:20pmThe President can turn on an accent when he wants to.
Report Post »Thighmaster
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:24pmIsn’t the accent part of the reading? I know I did My best when I read to My kids.
Report Post »KickinBack
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:28pmI‘m bettin’ today that he‘s a happy ’lil ‘ol leprechaun.
Report Post »Elena2010
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 2:44pm@Thigh – yes, it’s the interpretation that brings the narrative alive. Actors in Hollywood get paid big bucks for doing just that. Sometimes, the real accent adds to the negativity of the stereotype, as when Glenn does his Haaavad accent, poking fun at over-educated idiots.
How we speak English pulls us together or pushes us apart. My sister lives in the Northeast and was poked fun at for years for her Southern accent. The “damnyankees” thought she was an idiot, until she proved them wrong.
It was past midnight when I was trying to get home fm a visit w/friend in Norfolk. I was turned around backwards on the NJ Turnpike and came to a toll booth. In my best “Gomer Pyle” accent I asked for directions knowing that he’d make them simple for an idiot. He about laughed himself out of the booth, but I got what I wanted.
How you speak English DOES matter in the initial meeting. Wiser people move past that to see you how you really are.
Report Post »billrow
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:20pmThe teacher sounds like another clueless racist liberal who thinks since they voted for Obama they are free to say or do anything that pops into their pointy little head.
Report Post »Thighmaster
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:20pmI wonder if this student and his family, for that matter, refer to themselves as African (a whole continent) American or simply as an American. His mother apparently singles the President out as an African American president even though he is half white and he’s simply The President. Why the distinction only when it serves their purpose? Why do colored people (from NAACP) want to return to their past after so much advancement? Do they think this President will remember them after he’s gone from the WH. Remember the back yard barbecues with the middle class prior to the last Presidential election? How many middle class gatherings have we seen SINCE the election? May be coming soon but only because he needs something from you again.
Report Post »marine249
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:19pmWhat? did she want him to put in a few words from Cee Lo Green in like [F--- you]
Report Post »marine249
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:29pmTHE LANDLORD [blacker by cee lo]
Landlord, landlord
Report Post »My [f-------] has sprog a leak
Don‘t you ’member, I told you [your white azz]
abot it, way last [f---ing] last week.
marine249
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:35pmafter my insert roof
Report Post »DogTags
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:18pmThe same mentality that made this teacher think instructing this black student to read a poem about class warfare in a “blacker” tone is appropriate is the same mentality that led to unthinking people to vote for Obama simply be he is black.
Liberals see someone’s skin color as a novelty to exploit for their liberal causes. They still see blacks as these helpless children being assaulted with Bull Conner’s fire hoses. They equate liberalism with the “black struggle” and assume conservatives are racists because they oppose liberalism.
So unthinking people see blacks with this paternalistic “compassion” and assume they are doing something great by highlighting their “blackness” rather than to evaluate their character.
These unthinking people got all excited about electing Obama to be “the first black man to be president” and didn’t think if “THIS particular man should be president.”
Report Post »COFemale
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:15pmLet’s look at this incident as a “teachable moment”. When you are talking about stereotyping a particular race don’t pick on the only black student in the classroom and ask him to sound “blacker”. Pick on the white student and assume they are racist against the only “black” student and make them the butt of your “teachable moment”.
The only way we will get away from race, stereotyping and anything else the left claims is when they STOP BRINGING IT UP. However, that does not benefit the Democrats, so I won’t hold my breath on that one.
Although I don’t condone the way the teacher went about this, to demonstrate stereotyping, I see what she was trying to convey to the rest of the class. However, her delivery lacked COMMON SENSE; a common trait with Liberals.
Report Post »eric6161
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:13pmIf that had been me I would have used the moment to have humiliated the teacher… with a scene out of Mel Brooks movie “Blazing Saddles” where the black railroad workers are told to sing a ‘ni**er work song’ and sing “I get no kick from champagne”
Report Post »NewLife56
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:06pmSome people make me want to vomit, this racial crap has to stop NOW!!! Good for this young man standing up for himself, God Bless you young man.
Report Post »lukerw
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:12pmPoor Baby… We need an Insult Police!
Report Post »britlynz
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:01pmGood for the kid. His skin color is not a political prop for anyone. This teacher possibly believed that the kid would leap at the opportunity to “represent. She learned otherwise.
Report Post »randy
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 12:53pmTypical Liberal teacher, when the heII are blacks going to WAKE UP?
Report Post »SoupSandwich
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 12:52pmHahahaha. Hahahahaa. Poor lib teachers trying to bring some ghetto to the class and got spanked. DC should just annex that portion of Northern VA because it is nothing like the rest of the state. Hahahaha. NEA, DofE, VEA eat it and have a good choke. Where is all the lotto money at that was supposed to give us the most edumacated morons the world has seen?
Report Post »TheObamanation
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 12:51pmI can‘t wait until race isn’t the first thought that comes into a persons mind … can each person be considered individually instead of in some sort of collective ?
Report Post »SoupSandwich
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 12:58pmWell, Black Liberation Theology would have a resounding NO in response to that, but luckily, we weren’t all raised racist and entitled.
Report Post »BlackBeaver
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:23pmAmen!
Report Post »BlackBeaver
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:31pmTHEOBAMANATION, You are in the majority. Virtually all Americans want to “judge a person by his character, not the color of his skin”! This teacher- regardless of her motivation- should have shown the respect, understanding and sensitivity we expect of teachers. Fortunately, this young man stood strong!
Report Post »angelite49
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 1:36pmWe will never be “equal” until we stop looking at skin and look into one another’s eyes. I congratulate this boy for refusing to be that teachers “performing seal.” Unless this is a drama class, and the student is being given direction for a part he is playing (“blacker” is not a direction I would use), the way he reads a poem might include expression, passion, or character, but it must be his own interpretation, and not some caricature to meet his teacher’s stereotyped expectation. Students should not have to choose between personal dignity and class participation.
Report Post »Caniac Steve
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 12:51pmwatch the teacher will be a union one the tax payers will have to pay the twit even when the teacher is on/in time out via the rubber room..like they do in the NYC system…but i hope the “terminate” the teacher…after all it’s not a tumah” !!
Report Post »SpankDaMonkey
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 12:50pm.
Report Post »Rub some Dirt on it Nancy. If thats the worst thing that happens to you, You’ll be Lucky…..
copatriots
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 12:44pmWhile I agree this is abhorrent, I also won’t hold my breath waiting for the Superintendent and School Board support the teacher as they do in just about every other case when the “colors” are reversed.
Report Post »Stoic one
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 12:54pmthe truth will not matter here; this teagher is toast.
hidden_lion
Posted on March 17, 2012 at 12:57pmFor a teacher to do this to any student is idiotic and wrong. She needs to be kicked to the curb ASAP. Their is no room for this kind of thing in school. Teachers are supposed to uplift and encourage students to excel, she is a big time fail here.
Report Post »