A Spanish teacher got her butt fired after being accused of using “racist words in class.” The junior-high school teacher has filed a lawsuit contesting the allegations saying that she was fired from P.S. 211 in the Bronx in March 2012 because of a misunderstanding over the word “negro,” in other words, lost in translation.. Did I mention the teacher is also black?
The non-tenured teacher, 65-year-old Petrona Smith, maintains that she was instructing her class about how to say the various basic colors in Spanish, reports the New York Post. The word “negro” naturally came up because “negro” is the Spanish word for “black.”
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“They haven’t even accounted for how absurd it is for someone who’s black to be using a racial slur to a student,” Reid told the Post.
A seventh-grade student in the class took offense at the term, however, believing the word to be a racial slur. It’s not clear if Smith directed the term at the student. Whatever the case, he reported the incident to school officials.
Smith, a native of the West Indies, is black. And to top it all off, P.S. 211 is bilingual.
Smith’s attorney, Shaun Reid, called the charge that allegedly led to his client’s termination ridiculous.
The Post notes that Smith also claims that students hurled insults at her, calling her “f*ing monkey” and other abusive names. Smith hasn’t been able to find another job since she was sacked.
Read more here.