November 17, 2022
Black Student Opens Up About Incident With White Teacher Who Told Class His Race Is ‘The Superior One’
He just wanted to go to the bathroom, and his teacher started a conversation about race.
Karmello Luellen, a Black middle school student at Bohls Middle School in Pflugerville, Texas, expressed that he lost respect for his teacher, a white man, who has been fired after telling the class his race “is the superior one.”
According to CNN, Luellen’s teacher, whose name has not been released by the Pflugerville Independent School District (PfISD), made the remarks after he asked to use the bathroom.
“It started off because I asked him about going to the restroom and he told me no because he was racist,” Luellen told CNN.
“And then I asked him, ‘What do you mean by that?’ That’s when it started and he started talking about it.”
As previously reported by BLACK ENTERPRISE, the teacher can be seen conversing with his multi-racial class in videos posted on social media.
“Deep down in my heart, I’m ethnocentric, which means I think my race is the superior one,” the teacher said in a video recording posted on Luellen’s Instagram. Students are heard reacting both on- and off-camera.
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“It was just like anger building up–but I controlled it and it went down,” Luellen told the outlet.
In the video, Luellen and another student expressed to their teacher how they had lost respect for him.
“I had to speak to him. I was speaking from my heart, saying what I had to say,” luellen said.
According to a statement released by PfISD, the school district described the conversation as inappropriate, and the teacher in the video was terminated from his position Monday. The district is seeking a replacement.
“We want to reiterate that this conversation does not align with our core beliefs and is not a reflection of our district or our culture at Bohls Middle School,” PfISD Superintendent Dr. Douglas Killian said in the statement.
“The advisory discussion was inappropriate, inaccurate, and unacceptable; and this type of interaction will not be tolerated in any PfISD schools.”
“I really feel like he shouldn’t be teaching anywhere. I know he’s out of Pflugerville district but I don’t think he should be teaching kids if you feel that way,” Luellen’s mother, Janae Hardy, told CNN.