Mother shocked to find racial slur in first-grader’s spelling homework

Mar 17, 2018

Jennifer Thompson said she will skip teaching her daughter how to spell two racial slurs listed on her first-grade spelling list.

The parent of a student at H.H. Beam Elementary school in NC says her daughter Emily’s teacher sent home vocabulary words and two of them, “gook” and “spook” are derogatory terms often used to offend minorities.

“We had to explain to Emily why she could not say the word and not to use it,” Thompson said.

According to Dictionary.com, “gook” is an offensive work used to describe people of Philippine, Korean and Vietnamese descent. There’s even a 2017 movie called Gook, that features two Korean American brothers who own a struggling to defend the women’s shoe store they own during the 1992 L.A. riots.

A spokesman for Gaston County Schools said the offensive foul was not intentionally by the teacher. “The teacher made the list of words and was trying to teach students the “oo” sound,” said Todd Hagans.

“It was an oversight by the teacher,” Hagans said. “She never meant to be insensitive.”

Other words on the list included “look,” “took” and “spook,” – which could mean a ghost or a slur against black people. Basically, it’s another variation of the very offensive n-word.

Thompson said the teacher explained that she was not teaching definitions and just wanted to focus on words that sounded alike.

“They said they were going off the word sounds and not necessarily the meanings,” Thompson said.

The school board members haven’t responded to Thompson as of yet. She also said she explained to the teacher that her daughter won’t be spelling those offensive words on test.

Thompson said the teacher said she won’t penalize Emily for omitting the words from the test.

Parents furious that teacher gave their 7-year-old a racist role in school play

Further South in Georgia, the parents of 7-year-old in Douglas County, GA are upset that their daughter was assigned a racist role in a school play.Anastasia Bertram is a student at Burnett Elementary School. In her school’s theatrical production, she took on the part of a white girl who opposes desegregation after another student couldn’t remember the lines, the parents told WSBTV.

But Anastasia’s mom Amber says that’s not the part she signed up for. She claims that when the teacher presented her with a paper for her daughter to take part in the play, it was for a different role.

Anastasia can be seen on video, shouting “Go away you don’t belong here,” and then she grabs a sign that reads: “Please go home” on one side and “Cursed is the man who integrates” on the other side.

“No, I’m gonna have a child stand on stage and tell black children to go away because they’re black. That is the option that we chose,” said Anastasia’s mother, Amber, “She’s 7, and you put her onstage and made her think what she was doing was OK? That’s not OK.”

The parents told WSBTV that her teacher, Mrs. James, did not ask them for consent for Anastasia to play that part and reached out to her online to air their dismay and disapproval.

The Douglas County school district Superintendent Trent North followed up with a voicemail saying:

“I am calling to apologize. I was unaware of the treatment of your daughter,” North said. North said the district has launched an investigation into the incident.

Those words and actions were apparently not enough for Anastasia’s parents. They have pulled her out of the school.

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