Homework Assignment Peppered With Racial Slurs Angers Ohio Parents

WAYNE COUNTY, OH — As polls show race relations deteriorating in the United States, an Ohio teacher’s homework assignment that included a worksheet asking students to examine whether racial slurs have become more acceptable in conversation has angered several parents. The assignment was given to ninth graders who are reading Harper Lee’s classic novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

The book, set in a small Alabama town in the 1930s ,confronts the dogma of racism through the eyes of 6-year-old Scout Finch. It is peppered with slurs, and the teacher included a 15-year-old article from ABC News that said a certain racial slur was still largely considered taboo in the mainstream but had wound its way back into pop culture.

The ABC article used the derisive racial epithet many times, and some parents of Rittman students said the teacher should have have provided a written explanation of why its use is inappropriate and offensive, WJW reported.

Nick Evans, the Rittman High School principal, told the television statement the teacher’s intent was to show that using the racial slur in conversation is inappropriate, even if they see it in literature and other media.

In an email to the station, Evans said:

“Some English classes at Rittman High School are reading ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ by Harper Lee. The purpose of the ABC news article (April 10, 2002) distributed to students was to emphasize that reading a word in a book does not make it appropriate to use the word in everyday conversation. The teacher was trying to be proactive in her education of students in regard to vernacular utilized in this classic piece of literature.”

In April, a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll showed that of 2,800 adults surveyed, 36 percent gave the worst rating possible when asked about the danger of racism and bigotry in America. That was up from 29 percent who answered the question the same way two years earlier, Reuters said.

One of the 2017 survey respondents, Tiffany Cartagena, who is white, told Reuters she and her mixed-race girlfriend were dining at an Ohio restaurant when she overheard someone nearby call her friend a “monkey.”

“I’ve seen a lot of people become more bold with their hatred and discrimination,” Cartagena, 29, said.

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