A Florida high school history teacher has sparked outrage and has been placed under investigation after he is heard gaslighting students about how black slaves were treated and the meaning of the N-Word.
The video was filmed and shared by a TikTok user named Hector who goes by @elnegrosabrosoo. Hector, an African-American student at the Island Coast High School in Cape Coral, Florida, captured the moment the AP government teacher tells him and other students in his class that black slaves were not whipped by white people and that the N-word stood for "being ignorant," "stupid" and "not well-educated" in a video that is being widely circulated on social media.
'They Wouldn't Do That to the Slaves'
The clip starts off with the user's classmate, who is off screen, telling the unidentified teacher, "They [white people] would crack the slaves with the whips."
"They wouldn't do that to the salves," the teacher responds, with what appears to be his own version of history. Hector laughs over the absurdity of the statement, prompting the teacher to threaten to boot him out of the class while insisting they need to have an "honest conversation."
'The N-Word Means Ignorant'
The teacher then asks the confused classroom what someone means when they use the N-word before proceeding to explain what the racial slur stood for.
"The N-Word just means ignorant," he says. "It doesn't have any other meaning in any other vocabulary other than 'You are a stupid person. You are not well read. You are not well-educated.' That's what it means." Watch the video below:
Teacher Under Investigation Following Backlash
According to Merriam-Webster, the N-word is "used as an insulting and contemptuous term for a Black person" and a term that is "expressive of hatred and bigotry." Therefore, to suggest that the offensive term is synonymous with being "ignorant" by a teacher sparked anger on social media with users calling for the teacher's job.
"All those students should boycott that class until teacher is fired," wrote one user, while another commented, "I look forward to the update that the teacher is no longer employed because what he did was ABUSIVE to that student and all other black students in that classroom."
In the wake of the backlash surrounding the now-viral video, the school's official Twitter handle issued a statement saying that the incident was under investigation.
