A white New York school teacher allegedly accused of putting up a racially offensive image in a classroom claims she was a victim of racial discrimination herself.
In 2019 an image circulated of a collage displayed in a classroom at Roosevelt Middle School in New York that sparked outrage among the community and school district officials.
The photo, part of a larger classroom display of teachers and students, showed a pair of nooses under a caption that said “back to school necklaces,” alongside the words, “Ha Ha,” “#YES” and a smiley face.
The school district blamed an “isolated group of teachers” for the collage and said “appropriate action” had been taken, according to The Daily Beast.
Years after the incident, Nancy Jones Doering filed a lawsuit against the school district, revealing herself as one of the teachers accused.
here’s an issue i see coming up pretty often: something someone does that genuinely isn’t intended as offensive (possibly even speaking in a different context), but is taken as such by another person or group, and the offending person not only refuses to consider how it could be seen as offensive by others but then claims victimhood themselves.
in this case, it seems these “joke nooses” were intended in the context of suicide (yikes!), not as a racist symbol, yet - obviously - they’re going to be seen that way by some because, well, they are. not to mention the whole suicide thing, but let’s put a pin in that for now. if you’ve read the article, you’ll see how this situation is far more complicated than it appears, but little happens that is unexpected.
So, the TL:DR is that the teacher in question was one of a few teachers who made this collage, and no individual is taking credit for it. it seems, when confronted about the nature of this collage, this teacher, in fact, initially deflected criticism by saying that it wasn’t hers because it wasn’t her classroom, despite having contributed to it. While school administrators eventually removed the display after getting many, many complaints about the obvious racist imagery, the teacher was suspended and had an administrative hearing after which she was exonerated-- presumably after explaining that she didn’t intend for it to be taken in a racist context even though it was. And, certainly, she refused to apologize for offending anyone because, in her mind, she hasn’t done anything wrong.
This pissed a lot of other people off. They began to harass the teacher. A lot.
Messages, emails, texts, and all other forms of harassment coming from all directions, including the administration taking further action against her such as putting her on restricted duty once she was reinstated-- perhaps because her “not racist” collage was really glorifying suicide instead? ha ha?? or her persistent refusal to apologize? Either way, a shitstorm came her way after what she did, and the teacher is suing everyone else rather than accept the consequences of her own actions.