By Victor Ochieng
February is Black History Month, a month set aside in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom for the celebration of events and important people in the African American history.
Because it’s Black History Month, a teacher in a Baton Rouge Catholic School saw fit to ask students to write an essay about the month. It’s a topic that could’ve been quite interesting to write about, especially for someone with a little knowledge of history. One of the students wrote an extremely racist essay, and unfortunately made its way to the internet. Instead of writing about important things that have been done by different African American figures, the student took the opportunity to spread their own ignorance, first making it clear she wasn’t happy having to write about the month saying she doesn’t believe we’re all equal.
Following the backlash generated by the essay, St. Michael the Archangel High School, the institution whose student wrote the piece, was forced to issue an apology.
Many people who weren’t happy with the essay brought it to the attention of WBRZ, sharing excerpts of it.
“In my opinion I am very [unpleased] about how I have to write a topic about black people. I am not fully racist but I hate almost every black person. They think they run everything but in reality are an embarrassment to this country. Just I strongly feel like this because I had a bad experience with black people,” she said, adding, “Maybe if they acted right than I would look at [them] differently but I do not and I never will. I get back than they had a terrible life style because we (whites/Americans) treated them wrongly. Meaning we did not let them have freedom we did back then and used them wrongly.”
The girl then referred to the “bible,” not sure which one, to try to show that not everyone is equal. She said, “Think about it though…none of the apostles were different ethnic. They were all white. There was no black nor Hispanic mentioned really back when Jesus time was. All the stories we hear in the Bible are about like mainly white people. So since God knows everything that is going to happen [then] he would have done something about that. Than later than we start to hear about blacks. And how they did not have freedom like whites did. So than for example Martin Luther King stood up in front of millions to present a speech about how “we are all equal”. As much as I want to believe and support that statement about everybody is equal…well are not.”
Some of the girl’s critics started by deriding her poor grammar before pointing out the questionable Bible teachings she used to justify her belief, especially about Jesus and apostles having been whites and that white was the only race then. What an embarrassment to her Bible teachers!
In their apology, St. Michael the Archangel High School termed the incident a “teachable moment.”
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