A Texas school district is facing fire today after a junior high school teacher distributed an assignment that included a depiction of police as slave owners and members of the Ku Klux Klan.
The unauthorized assignment, apparently a lesson on political satire, showed a five-panel cartoon that started with a slave ship officer with a knee on a black man’s neck and ended with a modern-day police officer also with a knee on a prisoner’s neck.
The political cartoon included the victims saying the words, “I can’t breathe.”
? @JoeGamaldi blasted @WylieISD Superintendent for pushing disturbing material: “I cannot begin to tell you how abhorrent & disturbing this comparison is, but what is more disturbing is that no adult within your school thought better before sending this assignment to children.” pic.twitter.com/zEZC0yPVW8
— National Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) (@GLFOP) August 20, 2020
The Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest police organization, ripped the lesson and won an apology from David Vinson, the superintendent of the Wylie Independent School District, northeast of Dallas.
“I cannot begin to tell you how abhorrent and disturbing this comparison is, but what is more disturbing is that no adult within your school thought better before sending this assignment to children,” said FOP Vice President Joe Gamaldi in a letter and tweet.
Gamaldi, a Houston police officer, wrote: “Schools are supposed to be a place where the youth of America are taught acceptance and understanding, it is where we mold the future of our country, not indoctrinate them in the ways of division.”
In a note to Gamaldi, Vinson said, “I have directed my staff to review this and reconsider these lessons to be neutral and not take political sides. We are teaching, not endorsing. I apologize. It is being corrected for the future.”
The incident came as the nation is debating cases of police brutality and funding. Most polls show support for police.
Schools spokesman Ian Halperin told Secrets that the use of the cartoon was unauthorized.
He explained that the unnamed teacher used it personally as an attempt at “political satire” and that the controversy was being handled internally.
“This was not an assignment that was created by the district. This was a teacher who used an unauthorized assignment and unapproved material,” he said.
“The cartoon was not created by the district. This was a cartoon they found out in mass media to use as an example, and it was a poor choice,” he said.
