Viral Video Depicting White Teacher Appearing to Refuse to Hug Black Student Sparks Outrage
Published May 30 2023, 2:17 p.m. ET
In the education system, one would expect every student to be treated with the utmost care. Unfortunately, that is usually far from the case — especially for children of color.
On TikTok, @missasworld posted evidence of a white teacher forgoing hugging a Black elementary school student, and other creators were understandably outraged.
In the video, the white educator (dubbed an “eduKaren”) struts through the hallways of a school during her retirement walkout and offers warm embraces to every student except one. And she seemingly did not care that it was caught on camera. Here’s what happened.
A viral TikTok showed a teacher seemingly purposely not hugging a Black student.
The 20-second clip showed the eduKaren offering hugs to every white student that wanted one. However, when a young Black girl opened her arms to receive an embrace, the educator blatantly disregarded her and gave her an apathetic pat on the shoulder instead.
Unsurprisingly, a few users in the comment section tried to justify the teacher’s inexcusable behavior. However, Miss A immediately shut them all down by providing additional context.
Miss A revealed that the video of the white teacher not hugging the Black student was posted on the school’s community page.
While some people accused Miss A of strategically filming the teacher and posting it on social media to paint her in a negative light, the creator revealed that the video wasn’t even hers, to begin with.
“This was actually posted on the community page,” Miss A explained when responding to one such comment.
“This happened in New Waverly, Texas … This was [the teacher’s] retirement walkout, and [the school] recorded it and posted it on their social media, and I just so happened to come across it.”
Miss A said she reposted the video on TikTok because of the growing conversation surrounding racial bias in the education system. “No one seems to believe us,” the creator pointed out regarding the glaring prejudices many teachers hold against students of color.
“I thought, why not post it here as proof that we’re not making this up?”
It didn’t take long for Miss A’s video of the white teacher discriminating against the young Black girl to reach other social media platforms. On Twitter, one person pointed out that the teacher also seemed to neglect to acknowledge a second Black child after nonchalantly dismissing the first. “She ghosted TWO Black kids there,” one person wrote.
“Because you see her completely ignoring a second kid near the first one she insulted. And the other teachers behind her see it, appear to recognize it as disrespectful racism, and try to overcompensate for her evil.”
Some people claim the video was taken out of context.
While the first instinct of many viewers was outrage, others searched for more context. In a longer version of the video, the teacher can be seen hugging two Black students toward the end, which, according to some, appears to refute the racism claims.
What do you think? Why did this teacher seemingly snub that Black student?
