Jaime Sairrio should be on Dancing with the Stars, or My God, a teacher actually tried to TEACH!

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Up on top of the fold in today’s Tennessean Living section, lies the tale of a teacher who actually was attempting to TEACH but got suspended for his efforts. Stephen Henry is a middle school teacher at Creswell Arts Magnet school.

Henry overhears a young student (6th grader) describe something as ‘gay’. The teacher, according to the author of the piece, Jaime Sairrio, has a LONG history of opposing gay bias. I suspect Mr. Henry had heard the word ‘gay’ used this way more than once before, considering that the word began popping up about eight years ago in reference to things that weren’t - to use my generation’s terminology - exactly ‘cool’. A more recent generation would have described the same event as ‘random’.

Anyway, Mr. Henry rolls into pedantry mode with the student who apparently is black. ‘How would you like it if someone called you nigger?’ I should say right here and now that YOUR Tennessean didn’t supply the derogatory term, but seemed to strongly imply that the ‘N’ word was used, chiefly because the student responded with ‘How would you like it if I called you cracker?’ Thanks be to the Tennessean for allowing THAT word to be used so that the reader gets at least some of the flavor.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I don’t think that I should use the ‘N’ word, unless I’m quoting something (see above), and then only rarely. Racially derogatory terminology should be avoided in normal conversation including jokes. The context of the usage is all-important (see above). End of sermon.

So, we have the teacher using the ‘N’ word in an effort to show that the ‘G’ word has origins in prejudice. This is not some Imus-related nappy headed story. Derogation is derogation is derogation. But, the child goes home to mama. Mama is not happy. Mama goes to the principal. The principal is not happy. When principals are not happy, suspensions sometimes occur.

Mama says that such a lesson is not appropriate. Teacher apologizes. Mama apparently ignores the ‘cracker’ comment from her own kid. I think the kid got the lesson. It could have turned into that old Saturday night live skit with Chevy Chase and Richard Pryor, but it didn’t.

I don’t think the kid did or said anything wrong. She was responding to the ‘lesson’. The whole thing could have evolved into a discussion or something larger. Instead the teacher got suspended, and Jaime Sarrio spent four paragraphs calling the teacher gay without actually calling the teacher gay.

I guess all’s right with the world now, eh?

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Filed under Huh?, Race, rank hypocrisy