San Diego elementary school teacher is suspended for using the N-word in Harlem Renaissance poem


A white teacher at a multi-racial San Diego elementary school has been suspended for using the N-word while reciting an iconic Harlem Renaissance poem about black author Countee Cullen’s experience with racism as a child.

Amy Glancy, a fourth-grade teacher at High Tech Elementary School in Point Loma, read aloud the racial slur from the renowned poem ‘Incident,’ prompting two upset students to storm out of the classroom while others complained to the school’s dean.

‘I can’t believe you did that!’ one student said before leaving the room with another distraught peer, Glancy recounted to Los Angles Times columnist Sandy Banks. 

‘Ms. Glancy, you don’t understand how hard it is to hear that word,’ one student told Glancy after class, before complaining to the dean.

Glancy told Banks that she decided against censoring the poem ‘to demonstrate that the poet’s words can evoke emotion — in this case, anger and sadness.’

Amy Glancy, a white San Diego elementary school teacher, has been suspended for using the N-word while reciting renowned Harlem Renaissance poem 'Incident.' She is pictured above with a group of her students

Amy Glancy, a white San Diego elementary school teacher, has been suspended for using the N-word while reciting renowned Harlem Renaissance poem ‘Incident.’ She is pictured above with a group of her students

When she read the racial slur, two students stormed out of the class and others reported her to the school's dean. Countee Cullen's 'Incident,' published in 1925, describes his experience with racism as a child

When she read the racial slur, two students stormed out of the class and others reported her to the school’s dean. Countee Cullen’s ‘Incident,’ published in 1925, describes his experience with racism as a child

She said that she didn’t anticipate becoming at the center of a debate over whether young children should be exposed to harmful language, or other sensitive material, in an educational setting.

Countee Cullen’s ‘Incident,’ published in 1925, describes a narrator visiting Baltimore at eight years old to see a ‘Balitmorean’ boy sticking out his tongue and calling the narrator the N-word. 

The narrator writes about the impact the interaction had and how, despite spending seven months in the city, that’s the memory that stood out the most.

‘On Tuesday, a teacher at High Tech Elementary read a poem to students that included language that was upsetting to some students. We take these matters very seriously,’ High Tech spokesperson Anthony Millican told the San Diego Union-Tribune in a statement,

‘Incident’ by Countee Cullen 

Once riding in old Baltimore, Heart-filled, head-filled with glee, I saw a Baltimorean Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small, And he was no whit bigger, And so I smiled, but he poked out His tongue, and called me, ‘N****r.’

I saw the whole of Baltimore From May until December; Of all the things that happened there That’s all that I remember. 

Millican confirmed that Glancy was put on administrative leave following the incident and said the school ‘is committed to making sure that school is a safe space for all of our students,’ Millican added. 

After seeing her students’ reactions, Glancy apologized in an email to parents, seen by the San Diego Union-Tribune. ‘I learned a tremendous lesson today while trying to teach your students about the mood and tone of poetry,’ she wrote.

‘The lesson was intended to demonstrate that the poet’s words can evoke emotion — in this case, anger and sadness. Unfortunately, it triggered some very big emotions for the students that I did not anticipate,’ she wrote.

High Tech Elementary School, in the San Diego Unified School District, is listed as having 64% minority enrolment by U.S. News – 42.2% are Hispanic/Latino, 36% are white, 7.2% are Asian/Asian Pacific Islander, 6.7% are black or African American, 5.7% are of mixed ethnicities and 2.1% are Native American.

Michael Dominguez, the chair of San Diego Unified School District’s ethnic studies committee, told the San Diego Union-Tribune that he advises anyone who isn’t black against using the N-word, even if it’s in an educational context.

‘Words matter, and for anyone … without context, without preparation, without framing and reflection to see one of those words or hear one of those words pop up in the context of literature can be really triggering, because it triggers this whole historical link of trauma, frustration and feeling of otherness,’ Dominguez said.

‘It requires training, it requires skill and it requires support, and we need to be providing our teachers with more of that, not surface-level stuff,’ he said.

Francine Maxwell, chairperson of San Diego-based Black Men and Women United, told the San Diego Union-Tribune that she received calls from High tech Elementary School families about the incident.

‘We have to acknowledge the trauma that was caused and what we can do to move past it and begin to heal,’ she told the San Diego Union-Tribune. ‘Given that it’s Black History Month and things are amplified, we’re looking at it as an opportunity to begin the dialogue that did not take place.’

Countee Cullen, born Countee LeRoy Porter, moved in with the pastor of Harlem’s largest congregation, Reverend Frederick A. Cullen of the Salem Methodist Episcopal Church, beginning in 1918, after his paternal grandmother and guardian died.

He launched his poetry career at New York University before pursuing his Master’s degree at Harvard University, where he published his first volume of poetry, ‘Color,’ according to his biography on Poetry Foundation.

Cullen was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship to write poetry in France in 1928 and married Nina Yolande DuBois, the daughter of famed civil rights activist W.E.B. DuBois. Cullen was discreetly bisexual and left his marriage by penning a letter confessing his love for men to his wife.

He had a series of homosexual relationships before marrying Ida Mae Robertson in 1940, with whom he stayed with until his death in 1946. 

High Tech Elementary School, in the San Diego Unified School District, is listed as having 64% minority enrolment by U.S. News

 High Tech Elementary School, in the San Diego Unified School District, is listed as having 64% minority enrolment by U.S. News

The charter school put Glancy on administrative leave following the incident, saying that the school is 'committed to making sure that school is a safe space for all of our students'

The charter school put Glancy on administrative leave following the incident, saying that the school is ‘committed to making sure that school is a safe space for all of our students’ 

 

Glancy said she decided against censoring the poem 'to demonstrate that the poet's words can evoke emotion — in this case, anger and sadness'

Glancy said she decided against censoring the poem ‘to demonstrate that the poet’s words can evoke emotion — in this case, anger and sadness’

Glancy, told Los Angeles Times columnist Sandy Banks that she wanted to ‘elevate the voices of black poets’ and chose ‘Incident’ because of its focus on U.S. history ‘from the non-white point of view.’ 

She added that, after students confronted her after class, she said she was sharing the poet’s ‘experience and his language, and it’s not my job to censor that.’

Glancy told Banks that she regrets saying the word aloud. ‘I’m trying to educate myself. I want to do better,’ she told the writer.

‘Where I struggle the most is that I’m pretty well educated and literate, and I read a lot of views that are different than mine. I seek out information, and still I had no clue. That is what’s frightening to me,’ she added. 

Glancy’s backlash comes amid an escalating debate about censorship of literature and what is appropriate and necessary to teach young children.

Last month, a Tennessee school board voted unanimously to remove Art Spiegelman’s Maus, a graphic novel about Holocaust survivors, from its eighth-grade curriculum, citing a drawing of a nude woman, eight swear words and its ‘not wise or healthy’ content.

The McMinn County Board of Education voted 10-0 to remove ‘Maus’ by Art Spiegelman from the curriculum on January 10, despite educators arguing that the graphic novel is an ‘anchor text’ in eighth-grade English language arts instruction and the centerpiece of a months-long study of the Holocaust. 

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