N-word use lands Poulsbo Elementary principal on leave

[The Straight Story]

POULSBO — Poulsbo Elementary School’s principal is on leave as the district looks into a complaint that she used the N-word to explain the word’s meaning.

Superintendent Patty Page sent a letter home to Poulsbo Elementary parents telling them that Principal Claudia Alves was on “leave of absence while we investigate a situation that occurred recently.” The district is looking for an acting principal.

Page confirmed in an email that the “situation” she referenced was one in which Alves reportedly used the actual N-word in explaining the difference between it and “Negro,” and then repeated the word’s use after discussing the word with the district.

Shawna Smith, mother of a Poulsbo fifth-grader, said students in her son’s class were uncomfortable with the word “Negro” in a play they were rehearsing about Martin Luther King. Smith said the students’ teacher tried to explain it but had trouble getting them to understand its historical context. Alves was in the room and the teacher asked her for help. Smith said several children were troubled by the use of the word and would look at her son and another child in the class when it was used. Smith is white and is married to Matthew Smith, who is black.

Many of the children still were not comfortable with using the word after Alves explained it. Her son and a classmate refused to be in the play. After her son acted up during one of the play’s performances, he was sent to Alves’ office, where they discussed the word again, Shawna Smith said. Her son explained that he still was uncomfortable with the word “Negro,” to which Alves told him it was not the same as the N-word, only she used the actual word, Smith said.

http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2014/jan/22/n-word-use-lands-poulsbo-elementary-principal-on/

[Jackpine Radical]

1. I think this was an overreaction on the part of the Superintendent.

Clearly the principal was trying to make a useful point, and was not demeaning anyone with her use of the word.

[The Straight Story]

5. True, but since someone found it's use offensive it is, therefore, offensive

or something like that. Not sure how that works or who owns the trump card here. Someone is the victim and someone is being oppressed. Since the principal is in power she has the power - but she might also be black and be allowed to use the word. It could be that the parents are the ones in power since they set up what words were to cause offense without any conditions - but then you cannot make conditions unless you own a word and not sure both parents did.

It's all confusing so I can see this leading to like 6 months paid leave while experts from around the country are flown in testify.

[elleng]

2. We are LOST!

EDUCATORS punished by trying to EDUCATE and inform students. This is a subject about which we ALL should talk, should have talked, should discuss regularly.

[Cha]

3. JHC. It's the context, stupid.

[kwassa]

4. Definitely the wrong action here.

This was a teachable moment, and the teacher taught.

[liberal_at_heart]

6. I think it is great that the young man who felt uncomfortable with the word spoke up.

Not many young people speak up when they are in an uncomfortable situation. He said you wouldn't come right out and say the b word or the f word at school. Why would you say the n word? Bright, articulate, and outspoken young man.

[El_Johns]

7. He also felt uncomfortable with the word "Negro" even after the meaning was explained to him

multiple times, and opted not to perform in an MLK play because it used the word "Negro" -- the historically correct "polite" usage during the period.

It reminds me of a woman I used to work with who wouldn't answer the telephone using "hello" because it had "hell" in it.

Or people who insist "renege" has some kind of racial connotation.

BTW, Poulsbo = whitey mcwhitesville = .3% black.

[liberal_at_heart]

8. It still identified an entire group of people by the color of their skin.

We don't identify groups of people by the color of their skin anymore. I can understand why young people would be uncomfortable and not want to use that word.

[El_Johns]

10. We don't? "white" "black" "african-american" . The play was about MLK, for god's sake.

How do you do a play about MLK and not mention the color of people's skins?

Insanity.

Disconnecting young people from real history is no service to them.

[liberal_at_heart]

11. People used the term as a substitute for someone's name. We don't do that anymore.

It was used to show the inferiority of the slave and the superiority of the white person using the term. I knew I would get criticized for my opinion in this thread. I am obviously in the minority in my opinion, but I'm okay with that. This is my opinion and I can have any opinion I want even if it is not the same opinion as everyone else.

[El_Johns]

12. You can have whatever opinion you please, but "Negro" was not used "to show the inferiority of

the slave," it was the respectful usage for a long time, until the 60s.

The problem in the class was that the students thought "Negro" meant "the n-word". It doesn't, and it's perfectly acceptable to teach the meaning of the world "Negro" in the context of a play about MLK, who lived in a world where "Negro" was accepted respectful usage.

The teacher wasn't teaching "the superiority of the white person," she was teaching the meaning of a word.

God's blood, what is wrong with people?

I have a Dream by Martin Luther King, Jr; August 28, 1963

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.

But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/mlk01.asp

Oh, the little boy is not "comfortable" with the word "Negro". Isn't it clever and brave of him to speak out?

Only if you think children should all use their own private languages and we should all bend to their will.

In which case, no human communication is possible.

And the little prodigy's parents supported him in his private language, and the school management as well, and the principal who was actually trying to teach the little punk (who managed to wreck the MLK play as well) gets punished.

Yes, there's justice. What a clever little boy.

[Nye Bevan]

9. Wow. A teacher is suspended for saying a word when explaining that word's meaning.

Should a teacher also be suspended for reading aloud from "To Kill a Mockingbird"?

"Scout," said Atticus, "nigger-lover is just one of those terms that don't mean anything—like snot-nose. It's hard to explain—ignorant, trashy people use it when they think somebody's favoring Negroes over and above themselves. It's slipped into usage with some people like ourselves, when they want a common, ugly term to label somebody."

Perhaps Atticus should have said "n-word-lover"?