Source: Andrew Lichtenstein / Getty
hile the America we live in today is far different from the one where Black people were enslaved and discriminated against based solely on skin color, remnants of the past still pop up in the present.
That was the case over in Pulaski County earlier this week when a Kentucky history teacher was suspended after letting one of her middle school students wear a Ku Klux Klan robe to school for an assignment.
He was doing a report on the first KKK Grand Wizard, Nathan Bedford Forrest.
MORE: Rhode Island GOP City Council Member Arrested After Crack And Fentanyl Binge
There’s a “both-sides-can-be-true-at-once” aspect going on here, which has been creating arguments on both sides over the past few days. On one hand, you have the sheer vulgarness of a KKK robe itself, with just the sight of one being enough to cause controversy. In this case, you have to really ask yourselves: who wants to send their Black children on a bus one morning to see a classmate decked out in the most racist of memorabilia? On the other end, are the kids really that pressed about it themselves?
Love NewsOne? Get more! Join the NewsOne Newsletter
We care about your data. See our privacy policy.
Southern Middle School eighth-grader Jaxson Clark, a student in the classroom where the viral assignment originated, told
LEX 18 that his teacher didn’t deserve suspension, boldly stating with parental permission, “There was no racist movement behind it. I mean there were Black kids in the classroom, they all thought it was good. Nobody felt targeted.” [sic]
Here’s a more detailed breakdown of what exactly happened, via LEX 18:
“The student chose, and was approved to wear, a costume depicting Nathan Bedford Forrest, the first KKK Grand Wizard, Clark said.
‘He came in on Friday morning trying to wear it in school, so she took it from him and told him he could wear it during the assignment and she would give it back to him at the end of the day.’
Clark thinks the student put it on while on a school bus. He provided LEX 18 video originally downloaded from Tik Tok that he said showed the student wearing the costume on the bus.”
The aforementioned student makes the argument that his Black colleagues saw it as nothing more than a class assignment, yet the eagerness to wear it on the bus definitely gives way for major side-eye. Still, there is something to be said about what is considered offensive from generation to generation — don’t even get us started on
The N-Word debate!
“You can’t be mad over a school assignment that teaches history; you have to learn history to make sure you don’t redo it,” says classmate Clarkson. Pulaski County superintendent Patrick Richardson didn’t quite agree, stating in the same article, “It embarrassed not only me but our school district and community. I’m angered by the lack of thoughtfulness that went into this situation.”
As we said earlier…both things can be true at once.
Take a look below at what some are saying on social media, and let us know if you think a KKK robe could ever truly be used as an educational prop.
