*“The View” co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar have weighed in on the Missouri math teacher who was recorded by a student using the N-word during a class discussion.
The incident occurred at Glendale High School in Springfield, where Mary Walton, 15, recorded her geometry teacher trying to justify his use of the racial slur, Insider reports.
A student is heard saying: “Don’t say it right now as a teacher if you want to keep your job. This isn’t a threat.”
“I’m not calling anyone a [N-word],” the teacher replied, the Washington Post reported. “I can say the word.”
When the teacher realizes Walton is recording him, he asks her to put her phone away. The footage ultimately made its way online and the student was suspended for three days as a result. The teacher was initially placed on administrative leave but according to multiple reports, he has quit his job.
Walton was suspended due to the school’s policy on cell phones in the classroom.
Goldberg and Behar unpacked the incident on “The View,” and noted that it was the students who started the N-word conversation and the teacher was simply trying to have a teachable moment.
“They started this conversation; he turned around and said, ‘well, what is going on? Why are you saying this?’ Goldberg said, Mediaite reports. “There’s a whole bunch of stuff — for me, this is problematic. Because, a) I want to know who was having the conversation before you started filming. Where did the conversation start?”
“Some children were discussing it,” Sunny Hostin replied.
“If these kids are using the n-word, why weren’t they included in this? I don’t look at her so much as a whistleblower, I look at this as one of those moments when a teacher says, ‘OK, well, I have this question,” Goldberg continued.
“I know that a lot of folks in the African-American community believe that by using it they’re reclaiming that word. I don’t have that belief. My belief is that it should not be used — because it’s a racial slur — by anyone,” Hostin said.
“You’re kind of on my side here a little bit,” Behar told Goldberg. “Because the guy as a teacher, he was trying to have a teachable moment, I think. He was asking the question. But, he used the word six times, and he didn’t really need to do that. The word is so abhorrent and it makes me nauseous to hear people talk about it, to use that word, that I think in that case, he was wrong. But I do think that he was trying something.”
Meanwhile, Walton has lawyered up and is demanding an apology from the school.
“We are asking for an apology and for the suspension to be expunged from Mary’s record,” Walton’s lawyer, Natalie Hull, told Insider.
READ MORE: Oakland A’s Announcer Suspended Indefinitely After Saying N-Word on Air | Watch
The post ‘The View’ Hosts Defend Missouri Teacher’s Use of N-Word appeared first on EURweb.
