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Black Student

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Black Student Given ‘Most Likely to Blend in With White People’ Award

This past Tuesday, a Black student, Sydney Caesar, was voted “Most Likely to Blend in With White People,” at Anthony Aguirre Junior High in Channelview, near Houston.

The ridiculous “award’ was given at a mock end-of-the-year awards ceremony by her college prep AVID program course teacher, Stacey Lockett

According to reports, Lockett, is a former Texans cheerleader. Her Linkedin page has since been deleted and her contact page removed from the school’s website.

Stacy Lockett

Another student, seventh-grader Lizeth Villanueva who has been on the academic honors program for two years received the”Most Likely to Become a Terrorist” award.

She said that teachers signed different certificates like “Most likely to cry for every little thing” and “Most likely to become homeless in Guatemala”. Huh??

I’m not sure in what universe an educator would think that these actions are acceptable let alone funny. They obviously had no regard the students emotional and mental well being.

In a statement to local news channels, the Superintendent of Channelview ISD sent a statement in an attempt distance the School district from this foolishness:

“The Channelview Independent School District would like to emphasize that a recent incident where insensitive and offensive mock awards presented to students are in no way associated with the AVID College Readiness System or the AVID Center. Channelview ISD does not support this type of recognition under any circumstances and the placement of the AVID logo on these certificates was an error. At no time was the AVID program itself involved in this unfortunate incident.

The AVID System is an outstanding college readiness model that has led to continued high levels of student achievement in Channelview ISD. AVID’s system has benefited hundreds of thousands of students worldwide since 1984. Working together with the AVID Center, Channelview ISD’s AVID system provides intensive support to students with tutorials, positive peer groups, and college-readiness skills.

Channelview ISD would like to reassure the community that this incident does not reflect the many good things going on in our district. The district does not condone the incident that occurred and we are taking this matter very seriously.”

 

When we first heard about this story, we automatically assumed the teacher involved was not Black. We were wrong. However, that doesn’t make her actions any less troubling. We still need to hold each other accountable for foolish actions.

I’m sure Sydney doesn’t care whether the teacher is Black or not, she would just prefer not to have been mocked to begin with.

 

-Tony Oluwatoyin Lawson