More tripe from the
Posted on 08/01/2007 4:47:17 PM PDT by TornadoAlley3
The Pinellas School Board on Tuesday approved a one-day suspension for a white teacher who referred to the hair of an African American girl as "nappy."
The board voted 5-2 in favor of the suspension and diversity training for Belcher Elementary teacher Porsha Call.
Board members Linda Lerner and Janet Clark voted against the unpaid suspension, saying they did not consider the word racially offensive. "I don't use the term nappy. I've used the word frizzy for my own hair at times," said Lerner, who agreed with a related recommendation that Call receive diversity training. "I did not realize it was an offensive word."
Board member Janet Clark agreed, saying she found a Web site called “A Nappy Hair Affair,” which seemed to celebrate the word.
"I don't know that the word is racially offensive," Clark said. "I'm not black, so I can't speak from personal experience. But it is an adjective, correct? It describes your hair."
Mary Brown, the board's only black member, said the term has been used in a negative way to describe black people.
Board member Nancy Bostock noted that the teacher signed a document agreeing to the suspension. She said the one-day suspension reflected that the remark was not as offensive as some others. The typical punishment for a racially offensive remark is three to five days, she noted.
Officials said the remark violated a district policy prohibiting employees from making "inappropriate or disparaging remarks to or about students or exposing a student to unnecessary embarrassment or disparagement."
According to an account by the district's Office of Professional Standards, a student asked Call why another teacher was combing the hair of an African American girl. Call responded, "She is trying to do something to her nappy hair." Another teacher reported the remark to an administrator.
Call, a veteran teacher with a good employment record, told investigators she did not know the term was offensive.
The term "nappy" became the topic of a national debate in April when radio personality Don Imus used it as part of a larger statement criticizing the Rutgers University women's basketball team. Imus was fired for making a racial slur.
They call it that. So what’s the problem? She should just say she was communicating in Ebonics.
pinellas-county-is-the-devil’s-winter-home alert.
I think this is one of those words that only African Americans are allowed to use.
Being unfamiliar with the term, the first encounter with it (personally) could have been from the BBC: nappy in British English is diaper. So basically the term is ‘diaper-head.’
More tripe from the
Be careful freepers. Bill O’Crapbrain O’Reilly is watching and he might report on your posts tonight. He is trying to up his ratings on the backs of those who read Free Republic.
Ban the English language! Oh wait ¿no trabajará, si prohibimos inglés qué lengua nosotros utiliza?
....
I am sick of the whole diversity thing. Sick of it. People are different; that's OK. People should feel able to express themselves; that's OK too.
Imus was fired for the "ho" part, not the "nappy" part. Had he called them "nappy-headed beauties" he'd still be employed.
Oh, I see. That's how these incidents get started. Mee-ow!
I hope the school board doesn’t take away the teacher’s pension just to save a few pennies. That’d be niggardly!
Hmmm...looks like a new N-word alert to me.
“The Pinellas School Board on Tuesday approved a one-day suspension for a white teacher who referred to the hair of an African American girl as “nappy.””
I wonder, if two black teachers were walking down the hallway conversing and referring to one another as “nigga” wouldn’t they have to be suspended?
Why is this news in America?
Hell, I’ve been called every name in the book.
If she’s nappy, she must be happy.
Like Jesse, I love a good rhyme.
yea, you are right.
If a person is not offended, don’t worry, there’s always someone out there that will be offended FOR YOU.
That’s where most of these cases start. It’s not a person involved, it’s the people who interject themselves into the story by being offended for someones else and filing a complaint.
I would love to be her lawyer right about now.
In the “Nappy-headed Ho’s” statement, I thought that the reference to the women’s moral character was the issue at hand.
That’s a descriptive term used by African-Americans. This is beyond ridiculous.
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