A high school teacher who wore blackface to school for Halloween has been suspended, the Washington Post reported today, citing officials at California’s Milpitas Unified School District.
Video shared by a student on social media (below) showed the teacher, who has yet to be publicly identified, rapping as he stood at the front of a Milpitas High School classroom. The teacher was trying to imitate the rapper Common’s appearance in a Microsoft commercial.
Sooooooooo… one of our WHITE teachers at mhs yesterday decided to paint his face so look like common the rapper yesterday. pic.twitter.com/1WudSddCLZ
— karrington (@karrington_kk) November 1, 2019
“In a school community where we welcome learners and families from over 50 languages who represent cultures and religions throughout the world, and where our long-standing neighborhood, Sunnyhills, was established as the first city in the nation for planned integration, it hurts to know that this type of cultural insensitivity and lack of cultural awareness still hovers in the background,” said Milpitas Unified School District Superintendent Cheryl Jordan and Milpitas High School Principal Francis Rojas in a joint statement.
