A middle school white teacher in Texas has been fired after telling his students that he thinks the white race is superior—a claim that was captured on camera.
In a video that went viral on social media last week, a Bohls Middle School teacher in Pflugerville explained to his class—with a heavy demographic of Black students—that, essentially, white is right, Fox 7 Austin reported.
On Monday morning, a letter from Pflugerville Superintendent Douglas Killian said the teacher was “no longer employed” by the district following his “inappropriate, inaccurate, and unacceptable” comments, according to KXAN Austin.
A mashup video of the incident was initially shared by one of the students, @babysizzle808, on Instagram Saturday.
“I have always been raised to respect my elders[.] my parents don’t play about that at all!” the student captioned the post. “This still won’t change me[.] I’m still going to be the same[.] it’s just crazy this happened at my school to me and my friends. Im glad my parents stay on me and taught me how to move in situations like this.”
The video was later shared by the student’s father, @808mafiaboss, receiving nearly 300,000 likes and over 4,000 comments on Instagram.
Rhema Benjamin, an eighth grader present in the classroom during the conversation, said it was her “first time” hearing someone outright admit they were racist. He explained to KXAN that, just prior to the discussion caught on video, the teacher had chastised him for walking into the room wearing a Black Lives Matter sticker.
“He made me take it off,” Benjamin said.
The middle schooler’s mother, Millicent Benjamin, said she was proud of how her son and his friends had responded to the incident. “I am happy the children had enough courage within themselves to be able to get this on tape and be able to report it to the administration,” she said.
The teacher, who has not been identified, was placed on administrative leave on Friday, after the video went viral on social media and was given to the district.
“This interaction does not align with our core beliefs as a district,” a Nov. 11 statement from Douglas Killian read. “The video of the conversation includes statements that we find wholly inappropriate. The teacher has been placed on administrative leave while Human Resources conducts an investigation. The advisory activity was inappropriate, inaccurate, and unacceptable. This type of interaction will not be tolerated in [Pflugerville Independent School District] schools.”
Neither the district nor the student’s parent immediately responded to The Daily Beast’s request for comment Monday.
A Pflugerville middle school Texas teacher is on administrative leave after an “inappropriate conversation” with students in which he expressed his belief that his race is superior to others.
In videos posted to social media of a Bohls Middle School classroom, an unnamed, white Texas teacher and students are seen discussing race before a student asks, “So, you are a racist?” The teacher responds: “Yeah, how many times do I gotta say it?”
Teacher shares his racist ideologies with the class from facepalm
It is unclear how the topic came up, but videos posted by parents and students from inside the diverse classroom show a confrontation about how race plays into grades, who is allowed to use the restroom and the teacher’s belief that people are dishonest about their views on racial superiority.
Across several videos students react in shock at the teacher’s statements, with some students later saying they lost respect for him after he said everybody is racist at some level, to which one of the students responds, “I’m not racist though, I like all types of kinds.”
Posted by the parent of the student featured in the video, an Instagram post about the encounter has received more than 200,000 likes and thousands of comments from surprised, dismayed and frustrated followers.
On Friday, a statement released to media outlets by Bohls Middle School principal Sharon Churchin and Pflugerville schools Superintendent Douglas Killian said the district was aware the “inappropriate conversation” occurred earlier in the week during an advisory class.
“This interaction does not align with our core beliefs as a district. The video of the conversation includes statements that we find wholly inappropriate,” the statement reads. “The advisory activity was inappropriate, inaccurate, and unacceptable. This type of interaction will not be tolerated in PfISD schools.”
According to the statement, the school district Human Resources department is beginning an investigation into the incident.
Additionally, counselors and administrators are available to talk with students, the statement said.
Two weeks ago, Jody Greene resigned as sheriff of Columbus County, North Carolina, after it was revealed he made racist comments about Black employees in 2019. He said he resigned for his “love” for the county and asked for forgiveness as he went full speed ahead on his reelection campaign.
And on Tuesday, he won.
Unofficial election results for the North Carolina county show that Greene garnered more than 10,000 votes to be reelected as sheriff, compared to the fewer than 8,500 secured by his opponent, Jason Soles. His win comes amid significant controversy after the district attorney revealed in September that Greene had made “highly inappropriate and racially charged statements” about Black employees three years ago.
Court documents published by local NBC affiliate WECT reveal that District Attorney Jon David had obtained an audio recording from the State Bureau of Investigation of a phone call Greene was on. The court documents – a petition to remove Greene from office – say that Greene made the comments while he was suspended from office as the state Board of Elections investigated his residency status.
According to those documents, Greene was “convinced there was a leak in his office” that resulted in that investigation, and was heavily focused on Lewis Hatcher, North Carolina county’s first Black sheriff, and Melvin Campbell, a Black sergeant, as well as other Black employees whom he felt had undermined him.
“I’m sick of these Black bastards. I’m gonna clean house and be done with it,” a transcript of those recordings included in the documents reveal. “…They’re gone. I’m telling you. That’s as fair as I’m gonna be. … if they’re not with me, they’re against me. And they’re gone. … If I have to fire every mother f***er out there, guess what?”
“I’m still the motherf***ing sheriff, and I’ll go up and fire every goddamn [inaudible]. F*** them Black bastards,” he continued. “They think I’m scared? They’re stupid. I don’t know what else to do with it. So it’s just time to clean them out. There’s a snitch in there somewhere tellin’ what we are doing. And I’m not gonna have it. …hell is coming.”
The transcript shows Greene continued to say that Campbell and Hatcher would be fired, and that “they’re gonna be guilty by f***ing association.”
The call, according to Greene in a post on the sheriff’s office Facebook page in September, was recorded by his 2022 midterm opponent, Soles, who he said was a captain in Greene’s command staff at the time. Greene claims that Soles was “spreading rumors” to “further incite racial division…to pursue his personal agenda.” At the time of the post, Greene “adamantly” denied “any racial intent or actions on my part.”
The student facing assault charges after she repeatedly hurled a racial slur at a Black student on campus early Sunday morning has been permanently banned from campus and could face additional charges, the University of Kentucky president said.
Sophia Rosing – who is no longer a student – was initially suspended on an interim basis, and is now no longer a student, permanently banned from campus, and will not be eligible to re-enroll as a student, the message from University of Kentucky (UK) President Eli Capilouto to the UK community said.
“Although she is no longer a student, we must continue our investigations,” Capilouto continued.
“That includes our cooperation with an investigation into criminal charges filed; our Code of Student Conduct disciplinary proceedings and racial harassment misconduct being reviewed by our Office of Institutional Equity and Equal Opportunity.”
“As a community working wholeheartedly to prevent racist violence, we also must be committed to holding people accountable for their actions. The processes we have in place are essential,” he continued.
On Tuesday, Rosing’s attorney, Fred Peters, told CNN that she plans to withdraw from UK in the next couple of days and that she is “very embarrassed, very remorseful, very humiliated.”
Rosing has been charged with alcohol intoxication in a public place, fourth-degree assault without visible injury, second-degree disorderly conduct, and third-degree assault on a police officer or probation officer, according to Kimberly Baird, the Fayette County Commonwealth’s Attorney.
A French parliament session was thrown into turmoil Thursday after a far-right MP was accused of yelling “back to Africa” to a black colleague posing a question on migrant arrivals to the government.
The incident came as President Emmanuel Macron‘s government is promising a new crackdown on immigration amid accusations of failing to stem new arrivals or deport those whose residency requests are denied.
Carlos Martens Bilongo of the leftist France Unbowed party (LFI) was questioning the government on the request by the SOS Mediterranee NGO for Paris‘s help in finding a port for 234 migrants rescued at sea in recent days.
“They should go back to Africa!” interrupted Gregoire de Fournas, a newly elected member of the far-right, anti-immigration National Rally (RN).
The outburst sparked yells of condemnation, not least because in French the pronouns “he” and “they” are pronounced the same, suggesting that de Fournas might have been targeting Bilongo directly.
The RN is the party of far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who challenged Macron in this year’s presidential vote and then led her party to its best-ever performance in subsequent legislative elections, with 89 MPs.
The party was founded by her father Jean-Marie Le Pen but his daughter claims to have overhauled the former National Front into a mainstream force, despite critics who say the changes are only cosmetic.
National Assembly speaker Yael Braun-Pivet suspended the session after demanding to know who had made the comment.
“Racism has no place in our democracy,” responded Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, urging the assembly to sanction the far-right MP.
De Fournas later defended his comment, telling BFM television that the National Rally wants a halt to all illegal immigration after a surge in the number of people trying to reach France from Africa in recent years.
He accused his France Unbowed opponents of a “manipulation” and his party also denied any personal attack against Bilongo, a teacher who was born in Paris.
Le Pen has yet to comment but Jordan Bardella, favourite to succeed her as party leader at a congress this weekend, insisted that the deputy had meant to evoke the return of boats to African ports and accused LFI and the government of “extreme dishonesty”.
But LFI leader Jean-Luc Melenchon tweeted that the comments were “beyond intolerable” and that the deputy should be kicked out of the National Assembly.
A mixed-race Bethesda family has described suffering casual, racist comments towards them, saying a small minority “still live in the ’50s”.
These have been in the form of jokes and being socially excluded.
Medwen Edwards, 43, lives in Bethesda, Gwynedd, with partner Lamin Touray, 39, who is originally from The Gambia.
Microaggressions are “everyday slights, indignities, put downs and insults” people suffer in their day-to-day life, Race Alliance Wales said.
Medwen, a mother of nine, has three children with Lamin – Leo, three, Koby, two, and nine-week-old Aminata.
“I’m very lucky to have him in my life, and the children are too. He is so kind and loving towards us all,” she told the Newyddion S4C programme.
Having grown up in the Ogwen Valley, Medwen explained racism was a rare occurrence on the whole, but her family had experienced microaggressions several times.
“I still get comments now, it’s like some people still live in the ’50s,” Medwen said.
“We only get a few slight remarks. Comments and things like that, but otherwise everyone here is lovely with him.”
She met her partner at the gym in 2017 after the data analyst moved to study computer science at Bangor University.
She believes saying you are anti-racist is not enough, adding: “It’s easy enough to say you are, but it’s usually a different story when it’s time to show it, isn’t it?”
Among the comments include people saying they cannot be a “proper family” because she has white and mixed raced children.
“Your children can’t love each other because they are a different colour to each other,” has been another comment.
Medwen and Lamin decided to share their experiences after their friend Ebehitale Igene was racially abused and assaulted in a nightclub in Bangor.
Medwen says that racism exists in all languages, adding: “I think if a person is going to be racist, then they will be racist, if they speak Welsh, English or any other language.”
Since the racist abuse at the Cube night club, Ebehitale has been suffering from depression and anxiety, and Medwen urged people to consider the feelings of others before making nasty comments.
“It makes them feel like they are worthless. They get so low in themselves, then they are depressed. And it’s not fair at all, just because of the colour of their skin,” Medwen added.
“I want to see tougher sentences so that people have to serve a certain amount of time in prison, and raise the price of the punishment as compensation for victims. We need to show that it’s not acceptable.”
A University of Kentucky student was arrested for attacking a black student worker and repeatedly calling her racial slurs in an ugly episode that was caught on video early Sunday.
The student, 22-year-old Sophia Rosing, was arrested in a campus residence hall just before 4 a.m. on charges of public intoxication, assault, disorderly conduct, and assault on a police officer, according to online booking info. A judge set her bond at $10,000.
Rosing, who is white, stumbled into the university’s Boyd Hall appearing highly intoxicated, according to the student who was working at the dormitory’s front desk.
The student worker, Kylah Spring, explained in a TikTok video that she tried to check on the woman but was instead attacked and pelted with disgusting vitriol, she said
In disturbing videos posted on social media, Rosing refused the help and instead tried to hit and attack Spring while repeatedly calling her the n-word.
“Could you stop, please?” Spring asked Rosing after she tried to take a swing at her, one video shows.
“Nope,” Rosing replied. “You’re a n—-r and you’re a b—h.”
“Oh Jesus Lord, I do not get paid enough for this,” Spring calmly replied.
“I got this all on video,” another voice off-camera said.
Spring and another student tried to place Rosing in a seat, but she swung at them and kicked Spring. She then tried to push a shopping cart at them, according to additional footage.
Spring said Rosing punched her multiple times, kicked her in the stomach and bit her arm while ordering to her to do her chores.
“The girl starts saying things like ‘Do my chores,’ ‘It’s not my fault that you’re black,’ ‘It’s not my fault that you’re ugly,’ and at this point she’s like singing the n-word,” Spring said.
Police eventually showed up and cuffed Rosing, but even that didn’t stop her racist tirade.
The Wempner family felt like prisoners of racist bullying as they sat in their home in June.
The kindling for what was shaping up to be their small town’s political eruption started two years ago with a documented act of racism directed at their family.
“I’m honestly trying to decide whether I should put bullets in my pistols and have them handy,” said Dan Wempner.
In 2020, the family had pushed for the school district to respond after Amy Wempner discovered racist bullying Snapchat messages about her adopted son Armond, one of five Black students at Kiel high school in Wisconsin. When the school district brought on a consulting firm to conduct training about racism and harassment, white parents accused the firm of advancing critical race theory. That movement flipped the school board from liberal-leaning to conservative and prompted Armond to transfer to another school district.
What pushed the town to the edge in June was a viral, one-sided story shared by parents of three middle school boys and a conservative law firm. The narrative they put forward claimed that the Kiel school district was investigating the boys for using “she” pronouns to address a transgender student who used “they/them”. (The student’s side of the story has yet to be revealed to the public, though a parent later acknowledged one boy threw food at the student).
A series of bomb threats targeting schools, the public library, and all roads in and out of town over nine days paralyzed the local government and ended the school year early. Those behind the threats demanded the school drop the investigation by 3 June or face additional threats. On 2 June, school board members emerged from a closed meeting to pronounce the investigation “closed” in an unsigned letter.
By then, Kiel’s political factions had already clashed over the direction of schools, public libraries and even the local farmer’s market. Neighbors had grown suspicious of neighbors. Residents peeked out of windows; few ventured into the streets of this north-eastern Wisconsin town of 4,000.
Gastonia Police in North Carolina will investigate a terrifying daytime road-rage encounter, now viral on TikTok, in which an enraged biker hurled racial slurs and other invectives at a woman in a car.
It appears the man on a motorcycle pulls up to the woman on East Franklin Boulevard, police spokesman Rick Goodale said Saturday, after The Charlotte Observer emailed him a link to the video. The 28-second TikTok, posted by LaLa Milan on Friday, is titled “Not this man verbally abusing my mom in Gastonia NC.” It was viewed more than 2 million times.
It shows video taken from inside a car where the driver was stopped at a red light. The signal appears to be near Cox Road. The biker pulled up in a turn lane, on the passenger side of the car, and began shouting derogatory, abusive words. “You’re a idiot!” the biker shouts. “You’re a f—— idiot.” “You can’t drive,” the biker rants, telling the driver to “roll your window down.”
Twice he shouts the N-word. A woman in the car continues filming the biker while saying aloud, “I got the plate.” LaLa Milan, a popular creator and influencer on TikTok and other social media platforms, could not be reached by the Observer Saturday. It’s unclear which day the video was taken. Police are trying to determine if anyone reported the incident, Goodale said. That could prove difficult without knowing where the call originated and when, he said.
The school board unanimously voted to fire an Illinois teacher caught on video allegedly calling a student a racial slur, but the family of the student involved in that encounter said that action came weeks too late.
“I’m angry. I’m frustrated. And my heart is broken,” said Kankakee School District 111 Board Secretary Tracy Verrett.
Michael Nelson Jr., a 10th grader, was the student involved in the incident last Thursday in a classroom at Kankakee High School.
“It’s really hard to describe. I just can’t, you know… I’m just mentally shocked,” Nelson said.
Nelson said he was called the N-word by his math teacher as he walked out of class following a verbal dispute.
“There is absolutely utter disdain and horror at what occurred in that classroom,” said Kankakee School District 111 Board Member Christopher Bohlen.
The district said hours after the incident, the first-year teacher, identified as John Donovan, was placed on paid leave.
“There is absolutely nothing that any student can do to deserve having that word used against them,” said Kankakee School District 111 Superintendent Genevra Walters.
On Monday night, the school board voted unanimously to fire him.
But Nelson and his family are still demanding answers. They said the Illinois teacher should have been removed from that class earlier because of another encounter with Nelson last month, during which he allegedly threw a book at him.
“I mean, this is battery. He attacked him, and the school did nothing. The school did nothing to protect him,” said Kevin O’Connor, an attorney for the Nelson family.
Donovan did not immediately return requests for comment.
