A teacher from the Bronx said she was fired after refusing to make the cross-arm “Wakanda forever” salute to black power during a school superintendent meeting.
Rafaela Espinal, a Dominican American who identifies as Afro-Latina, said she was criticized for refusing to produce the gesture from the 2018 Marvel Comics film Black Panther, according to a lawsuit filed earlier this month.
Espinal filed a Manhattan Supreme Court suit against the city’s Department of Education Chancellor Richard Carranza and other top officials alleging she was “admonished” and told it was “inappropriate for her not to participate” in the salute by then-Bronx Superintendent Meisha Ross Porter.
The $40 million suit alleges Espinal was told by the DOE that she wasn’t “black enough,” and she should “just learn to be quiet and look pretty.”
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Espinal’s lawyers contend her client felt the arm gesture “introduced a racial divide where there should be none.”
DOE officials countered that the arm gesture was borrowed from the popular comic book film and is “a symbol used to represent the Bronx” and not intended to be interpreted as a form of “black power.” Porter, who has since received a promotion to “executive superintendent,” is alleged to have referenced the Black Panther salute as “the salute” when encouraging staff members to make the arm gesture.
Espinal’s attorney, Israel Goldberg, alleges the Wakanda salute gesture was “hijacked.” The actual gesture used concerning the historical group is a raised fist, not the cross-arm gesture from the superhero film.
Espinal, who was one year away from retirement, said she was never offered an adequate reason for her removal and that the department told her it was moving “in a new direction” and she “did not fit into that agenda.”
A DOE spokeswoman said the department is “committed to fostering a safe, inclusive work environment and strongly disputes any claims of discrimination or improper treatment,” according to Saturday’s report.
A similar incident involved veteran Bronx Superintendent Karen Ames, who said she was targeted by the department for demotion after she called the district’s equity platform a “platform used to create gender, age, racial and ethnic divisions in the NYC School system,” the New York Post reported.
Ames refused to create the “Wakanda Forever” hand gesture, which reportedly led to conflicts with other members of the school board. She alleges she was chastised by colleagues about her ethnic background after sharing a story about her grandparents who survived the Holocaust in Poland.
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The Washington Examiner contacted the DOE of the Bronx and Espinal’s attorneys but did not immediately receive responses.
