Only in America will a Black man get fired from his job for asking a racist student to stop calling him the N-word. It's truly ridiculous and sad. So if you don't know, Marlon Anderson was fired from a Madison, Wisconsin school district High School.
Anderson, 48, said Friday in an interview with the Journal Sentinel that he was "doing a lot better" than days earlier.
On
Oct. 9, Anderson was escorting a disruptive male student out of the
West High School building when the student started calling Anderson the
N-word after pushing the school's assistant principal and threatening to
beat her up.
In responding to the abusive language, Anderson says he said the word himself in making a point to the student not to use it.
"Every
type of N-word you can think of, that’s what he was calling me,"
Anderson said. "I said, do not call me that name. I'm not your N-word.
Do not call me that."
West High School Principal
Karen Boran later that week pulled Anderson aside, he said, and told him
he had "an uphill battle" to keep his job. And in a letter Wednesday,
Boran told parents a staff member — Anderson — would not be returning to
the school after an investigation of the incident.
"As
you know, our expectation when it comes to racial slurs has been very
clear," Boran wrote. "Regardless of context or circumstance, racial
slurs are not acceptable in our schools."
Anderson called the policy "lazy."
"You
can’t eliminate racism by ignoring it — by trying to hide the word or
by trying to legislate the word," he said. "What if a white student
calls a black student an N-word, but doesn’t say the word? It's the
intent behind what you’re saying."
Madison School
District Superintendent Jane Belmore in a statement Friday said the
district wants to take a strong stand against the use of racial slurs
but also suggested officials will review the policy that prompted
Anderson's firing.
Anderson is appealing the district's decision to fire him — a process
that Belmore and Reyes said Friday will move along "as quickly as
possible."
Also as of recently, Marlon Anderson was hired temporarily to work at the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County. He will serve as Director of Program Operations, in which he will manage volunteer engagement, special initiatives and teen recruitment, the Boys & Girls Club says.
I definitely wish him the best, and I hope this student is punished to the maximum that's allowed. Overall the school wants to show how strict they are. This firing was wrong and definitely could've been handled differently in my opinion. Even if he's offered his job back, he should be careful.
