Ok, I need everyone to brace themselves. You’re going to want to sit down for this and make sure you’re not currently operating any heavy machinery or in the middle of fixing your edges just right. The news I’m about to break is both shocking and virtually unheard of:
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In Mississippi, five inmates have been killed due to stabbings and attacks within the past week.
The new graduating class of West Virginia correctional cadets strategically photoed posing with one arm up – a known Nazi-related gesture and salutation – are all set to be fired, West Virginia Governor Jim Justice recently announced.
In a recent statement released on Monday, Governor Justice condemned the training group’s behavior, according to CNN.
READ MORE: W. Va. police trainees get canned for group photo with Nazi salute
Justice stated, “We have a lot of good people in the Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety. But this incident was completely unacceptable. Now, we must continue to move forward and work diligently to make sure nothing like this happens ever again.”
The governor condemned the training group’s behavior in a statement on Monday.
The now-viral image, which hit the internet back in early December, shows members of the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation Basic Training Class 18 uniformly posing with one arm raised, with the words, ‘HAIL BYRD,’ seen above the cadets. According to the state Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety, ‘HAIL BYRD,’ is a reference to Class 18’s training instructor.
The Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety released the image to the public, blurring out the faces of the trainees and employees. Following the photo’s release, the department underwent an investigation, and a number of employees were suspended. Along with the suspension, Cabinet Secretary for the Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety, Jeff Sandy, recommended to Gov. Justice that the cadets be fired.
In Sandy’s letter to the governor, he noted that some of the cadets, “were aware of the connotations associated with the gesture, that they were uncomfortable with the practice … and/or that they only followed what they perceived to be an order” because they feared they wouldn’t graduate, according to CNN.
READ MORE: W. Va. police trainees get canned for group photo with Nazi salute
Sandy wrote, “Nonetheless, their conduct, without question, has also resulted in the far-reaching and harmful perceptions that are the antithesis of the values we strain to attain.”
Along with the pending release of the cadets, three staff members at the training academy are also slated for termination, and four instructors who failed to report the problematic picture will be suspended without pay.
The post West VA correctional cadets photoed giving Nazi salute will all be fired appeared first on theGrio.
You would think people know better, but ignorance continues to blossom. An elementary school has apologized for having black students portray slaves in a “lesson” being presented by their peers.
According to CNN, at Lafayette Elementary School in Washington, D.C., fifth graders had been studying the Civil War and Reconstruction and the students started reading an article titled “A Nation Divided.” The teaching team gave the students options to further engage with the material they were reading by having them put on a dramatic reading, create a living picture, or create a podcast in small groups according to a letter to the families of the students from the school’s fifth-grade teaching team.
Some students of color were asked to portray roles by their peers that were “inappropriate and harmful,” including “a person of color drinking from a segregated water fountain and an enslaved person,” the letter stated in part.
Lafayette Elementary School Principal Carrie Broquard sent a letter of apology to the families of the students affected. “At Lafayette, we believe in the importance of teaching painful history with sensitivity and social awareness,” Broquard wrote in the letter, dated Dec. 23. “Unfortunately, we fell short of those values in a recent 5th-grade lesson.”
“During the classroom circles and small group discussions, students expressed discomfort in the roles they were asked to play,” Broquard wrote. “Others expressed uncertainty in how to respond or advocate for peers who were uncomfortable.”
“We acknowledge the approach to learning that took place around this lesson was inappropriate and harmful to students,” District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) said in a statement to CNN. “The school recognized its mistakes, addressed the matter with families, and is actively reinforcing values of racial equity across the entire school community. We support Lafayette Elementary as it nurtures young scholars to be models of social awareness and responsibility.”
Broquard said the school is planning to create a Diversity and Inclusion Committee and has teams working to ensure “all assignments are culturally sensitive and appropriate.” In January, the entire staff will also have diversity training.
