The latest entry in the “what were they thinking?” department comes from a high school in my hometown of Charlotte, NC. On November 13, some biology students at Ardrey Kell High School got a surprise question on their genetics test.
The question read:
“LaShamada has a heterozygous big bootie, the dominant trait. Her man Fontavius has a small bootie which is recessive. They get married and have a baby named LaPrincess. Show the cross between LaShamanda and Fontavius.”
After that, the students were asked to determine the probability of LaPrincess inheriting a “big bootie,” as well as the probability that another child will have one.
Let’s see if we’ve got this right. Two people with names that supposedly “sound” black are due to have a child who may inherit her mother’s “big bootie.” In what world is such a question not offensive and racist? At least one parent asked the same question. In a colossal understatement, she told WBTV in Charlotte that the language used was “not appropriate…at all” for high school kids. When she told the teacher her concerns, the teacher emailed her back to say that at the end of the test, students were to pick two of the remaining questions. That “bootie” question was among the choices. While the teacher said that she didn’t “necessarily” assign that question, she did apologize “if it offended you and your child.” The teacher added that the question had been used several times before by other teachers, and had even been included in a summer school packet teachers received from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.
That response wasn’t nearly good enough for the parent, especially given how uncomfortable her child had been when reading the question. So she asked WBTV education reporter Dedrick Russell to help. When Russell talked with district officials, they said that the worksheet hadn’t been created by the district, and school officials had ordered it taken out of circulation.
Sorry, not good enough. You would think that officials at Ardrey Kell and/or the district would have found out how this question was even available in the first place. The picture I’m getting is that it was slipped into a database of test questions on genetics without being vetted, much like an anti-evolution cartoon was slipped into a biology lesson at an Atlanta high school. Every single teacher who used that question in the past has some serious explaining to do. And Ardrey Kell’s principal owes the entire school an apology–and not the “sorry if anyone was offended” nonsense that the complaining parent originally got, either.
(h/t to Addicting Info)
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Darrell Lucus, also known as Christian Dem in NC on Daily Kos, is a radical-lefty Jesus-lover who has been blogging for change for a decade. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook.
