By Celine Nghiem
The video of Teacher David Carter wearing blackface prompted backlash from students and staff within MHS and even made national headlines. Carter was placed on administrative leave and it is not clear whether he will return. The administration also implemented a mandatory lesson about blackface for students to learn from the incident. However, the response seemed rushed and disorganized. The administration made several errors in responding to initial student complaints and should have handled the situation better.
According to many students, Carter was not immediately removed from the school after it was reported that he was wearing blackface. In fact, he was allowed to teach for the rest of the school day, but with his face paint off. Students and staff had been complaining to the office since early in the school day, and Carter had been contacted and asked to remove the face paint after third period, according to several students. Even though school authorities knew what was happening, they did not give the teacher any consequences until MHS received negative attention. In fact, Carter was not put on leave until two days after the incident, when a video of him in blackface had already gained traction and caused widespread outrage. Instead of allowing him to teach for the rest of the day, the school should have sent him home immediately in order to prevent further backlash. His continued presence at the school made it seem as though the administration wanted to cover up what happened and move on. Given the fact that MHS is so racially diverse, school authorities should have understood the effect that his costume would have on students and responded far earlier.
Although the administration took steps to educate students about blackface, these measures were difficult to carry out. The “mandatory” lesson on blackface and its significance were not taught by all teachers, which could have been due in part to the rushed nature of the lesson. Since teachers were notified of the lesson plan less than a week before they were supposed to teach it, it might have thrown off other plans they had for their classes. This was especially difficult for teachers of subjects such as math and science, who could not easily link the lesson to any of the material being taught in their classes and might have had more trouble teaching it due to their lack of experience with the topic. Fortunately, the administration combated this issue by allowing teachers to postpone or to send their students to the theater to be taught the lesson by an African American social worker. However, the abruptness still caused a disruption to many teachers’ plans.
The lesson itself was only vaguely linked to the incident. Although it somewhat covered the effects of blackface on African Americans, it presented the lesson in the context of a Virginia governor who was found to have worn blackface at a college party. Aside from the public outrage, the governor’s case and the blackface incident at MHS shared few similarities. The lesson should have focused more on the history of blackface and used a more relevant example