Суперинтендант приносит свои извинения за «несоответствующую» опору арбуза на мероприятии месяца черной истории Оклахомской средней школы

Oklahoma Metropolis’s school superintendent has apologized after a cardboard picture frame emblazoned with watermelons became once aged at a high school’s Sad History Month event celebrating soul meals.

The outsized frame that attendees might perhaps per chance per chance possess whereas posing for photos became once aged right via the Feb. 20 soul meals lunch at Frederick A. Douglass Excessive College,The Oklahomanreported. African Americans have prolonged been subjected to a racist stereotype that they’ve a utter fondness for watermelon.

Sean McDaniel, the superintendent for Oklahoma Metropolis Public Faculties, mentioned Thursday that the prop became once “harmful and hurtful.”

“On behalf of the board and district management, I sincerely apologize for this and any diverse incident that has devalued any member of the OKCPS household,” McDaniel mentioned. “Going forward and with out compromise, our learning and work environments will conception, respect, and fee all folks.”

The frame became once a long way from the event after an administrator saw it, a district spokeswoman mentioned.

Ruth Veales, who’s one among two dusky contributors of the metropolis’s school board, mentioned she realized of the picture prop when complaints surfaced on social media. “Other folks might perhaps per chance per chance enlighten there became once no intent,” Veales mentioned. “Now we have to purchase ownership of what it is that we cessation.”

McDaniel mentioned the picture frame became once especially heinous given diverse contemporary events in the direct. On the University of Oklahoma, college students were staging a sit down-in Friday originate air the college president’s role of enterprise after two professorsaged racial slurs at school.

And in Newkirk, a itsy-bitsy metropolis about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of Oklahoma Metropolis, a high school basketball announcer became once a long way from the sport final week after regarding the names of Crooked Oak Excessive College avid gamers as “pretty disgusting.” Crooked Oak Excessive College, in Oklahoma Metropolis, has a scholar population that is 90% Hispanic or dusky.

“It’s my expectation that all folks in our district are valued and that we operate in a custom of mutual respect,” McDaniel mentioned.

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