I’ve argued multiple times that there are certain “educators” who have no business teaching Black students. Well, it turns out that there are teachers who don’t need to be teaching non-white students altogether—which is essentially to say they shouldn’t be teaching at all.
At a time when media is filled to the brim with stories about Asian people being attacked and facing discrimination, largely due to the irresponsible “China virus” rhetoric spread by a certain former president—and a time when “Stop Asian Hate” is among the top trending hashtags, especially since the Georgia mass shooting that killed eight people, including six Asian women—middle schoolers in Texas were given a test question that was heavy on racist Chinese stereotypes and light on common sense and decency.
NBC 5 reports that the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District has released a statement on its Facebook page saying that three teachers have been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation into the incident involving “derogatory and hurtful” language.
In the multiple-choice quiz question that literally looks like Donald Trump wrote it himself, students were asked to determine “Which of these Chinese norms are true: A. It is normal in China to cut off someone’s lips if they burp in a restaurant; B. It is normal in parts of China to give children fifty lashes by cane if they steal a piece of candy; C. It is normal in parts of China to eat cats and dogs.”
If you’re asking yourself: “Well, which one is true?”—you’re definitely asking the wrong question. What you should be asking is why the hell any “educator” would think these questions were appropriate for the classroom in the first place.
Imagine if a school asked in a quiz question: “Which of these are true about Black people? A. They’re violent thugs who are Black-on-Black crime-ing themselves into extinction. B. They love beating their kids. C. A lot of them like chicken.” (To be honest, these actually sound like test questions that white teachers in Texas would ask.)
Anyway, the quiz question was shared on Twitter by Carrollton Creekview High School graduate Joy Lim, who said her 12-year-old sister is a middle school student in the district, according to the Dallas Morning News.
“My sister’s 6th grade social studies class took a quiz today and.........this is ridiculous,” Lim wrote. “Harmful rhetoric in our education system is exactly why anti-Asian hate crimes and racism persist today @CFBISD @BlalackMS do better.”
Lim, who is Korean-American, told NBC, “I was shocked and horrified. I was like, ‘Who made this quiz?’ With this example, we see that starting from middle school the students are taught to think differently about China, about Asian Americans, people who look different than them.”
Exactly. But then, that’s America for you.