As if my school wasn’t crazy enough, a teacher thought it would be OK to paint a confederate flag on her ceiling. Now, I’m all about learning. Teach the heck out of that subject. Pull up pictures on the overhead, draw it even so that it can be erased later. But to paint it? Permanently? And have your black students sit under it all year? That’s ridiculous.When I see the Confederate flag, I see racism, oppression and rebellion against freedom, against contemporary ideals of equality and human rights in the USA. I see the pain and torture that blacks went through. It makes me uncomfortable. And it has made other people feel uncomfortable as well. And these are the things I told this teacher about when I confronted them today, but they only got defensive. “Well It’s a part of history!!” and “well WHO got defensive give me NAMES” and “I don’t appreciate you coming into MY classroom and telling me what to do and what to change!!” were only a few of the lovely things said to me by them. I understand that as a teacher, it’s your job to teach these things, but to paint a symbol of bigotry on your classroom ceiling takes it too far. Out of respect for the Jewish students, they probably wouldn’t put a Nazi flag on the ceiling to teach about the holocaust. (I don’t mean totrivializethis other horrible event, but to show a comparison.) The point is that NO ONE should be made uncomfortable at SCHOOL by their TEACHER. She’s not even MY teacher, but as a black student I know what’s right and what is wrong. After about five minutes of “arguing” (they cut me off a bunch and wouldnt let me talk so it wasnt much of an argument) I left their classroom shaking and furious. They still don’t get it.

So i’m going to make them get it.