Fired for word: 'Negro' in Spanish class

[SamuelB]

By David Clark Scott | Christian Science Monitor – Sat, May 25, 2013

Fired for word 'negro'? A Bronx teacher has filed a lawsuit claiming she was fired for using the word 'negro' in class. 'Negro' is the Spanish word for the color black.

One of the first lessons one learns in English class is that context is everything. The same holds true in Spanish.

Take the case of Petrona Smith. She says in a lawsuit that she was fired from teaching at Bronx PS 211 in March 2012 after a seventh-grader reported that she'd used the "N" word, according to The New York Post.

Smith doesn't deny using the word. But she argues that everyone uses it, when speaking Spanish.

She was teaching the Spanish words for different colors, and the color "black" in Spanish is "negro." She also taught the junior high school students, in this bilingual school, that the Spanish term for black people is "moreno." And by the way, Smith, who is from the West Indies, is black.

Read more:
http://news.yahoo.com/fired-word-negro-spanish-class-135016980.html

How stupid can you be? Firing a teacher for teaching a word in Spanish?

[bike man]

1. Oh, New York. nt

[Cooley Hurd]

2. Context is everything...

Did she point to an African-American student and exclaim "NEGRO"? If so, she should be fired for being stupid and insensitive.

[REP]

3. There's a bit more to this than that it seems

Smith was also accused of calling her students “failures.”

But in court papers she claims that second insult was also a misinterpretation.

Smith had allegedly asked students who had failed a test to move to the back of the room, but says she never called them failures.

She denied calling the student a “Negro,” and explained to investigators that she was teaching a lesson about how to say different colors in Spanish and said the word “negro,” which is Spanish for the color black. She told her students that it was not a derogatory term and that the Spanish word for a black person was “moreno.”

She added that she’d been verbally abused by her charges, including being called a “f---ing monkey,” a “cockroach” and a “n---r,” but had never stooped to their level.

A 2011 investigation substantiated the student’s undated claims based on accounts from four seventh-grade witnesses, even though the student’s own parents said he’d lied about the event.
entire article

[bike man]

11. I was in an English class in HS where the seating arrangement was by grade on the

six week cycle.

The highest grade earners were closest to the teacher, and the lowest were at the opposite corner of the room. The last row was almost always filled with boys, while the first row was girls.

No one thought the seating arrangement was sexist.

He was one of the most revered teachers. This was in 1960, and when he died a few years ago his memorial service and funeral were attended by hundreds of former students - ranging from the mid 1950s to the 1980s, when he retired.

I think the sensitivity meter of many people needs to be adjusted a bit.

[Sheldon Cooper]

4. It's pronounced 'NAY-gro' in Spanish,

as compared to the pronunciation of 'NEE-gro' or even 'NIG-ro'. I wonder if there is more to this story, because to fire someone for teaching the correct word and pronunciation for black in Espanol, in a Spanish class, is too bizarre.

[Warpy]

5. The whole world is upside down

and the stupidest have been put in charge of the intelligent.

Nothing good can come from this.

[hobbit709]

7. I keep telling people that Idiocracy is a documentary.

[hobbit709]

6. Gawd forbid it was a geography class talking about Latin American rivers.

[arely staircase]

8. she should have gotten "niggardly" into her filing somehow

just for shits and giggles

[Squinch]

9. A story about schools from the NY Post. I guarantee the actual story is something different than

what was reported.

Don't know what the real story was. Just know that it wasn't whatever the Post reported.

[uppityperson]

10. Doing a search all I find is rw and "christian" links. I'd like to see a reputable source before

getting upset. Thanks.

[ManiacJoe]

12. See previous thread from last month:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022899552