In a Virginia high school, student Jordan Shumate, a ninth grader was told to read a Langston Hughes poem “blacker.” Yes, you’ve read that correctly. This teacher told this student to be “blacker” while reading this poem. In this day and age you would think that racism would not be a big issue, but it is still ver prevalent in the minority communities.
It was reported by the Washington Post, that teacher Marilyn Bart told the student as he read his poem, “Blacker Jordan–c’mon, blacker, I thought you were black.” Jordan then, for obvious reasons, decided that he did not want to read the poem any further.
After Jordan sat down, the teacher then continued to read the poem herself, and as Sumate described, he said that she read the poem “like a slave”. He then asked her if whether or now she thought all black people spoke that way, and he got in trouble for speaking out of turn.
