Ohio Teacher Goes On Racist Facebook Halloween Rant
A high school teacher in Akron, Ohio was placed on paid leave Monday for posting a racist Facebook rant about trick-or-treaters. Civil rights leaders are now calling for his firing.
Firestone High School teacher David Spondike, 51, took to his Facebook page Sunday night to let the world know how he felt about kids from the “ghetto” daring to trick-or-treat at his house. According to screenshots of the rant sent to local news outlets by an anonymous Facebook friend, Spondike was upset about one of the children urinating outside:
When Facebook users responded to this post and questioned his language, Spondike went all in on the “but they say it!” defense that has never worked for anyone ever:
Spondike further posts that he hears “that [racial slur] word more than 25 times a day in a public school, where it is used thousands of times every day by black people.”
Spondike then engages other Facebook users while he defends and explains his posts.
“I wish Firestone High School, and I am sure at other schools would stop openly and unabashedly using the word [racial slur],” he wrote.
“Racism is racism and to allow one race to use [a] word and not another IS racist. What I said was absolutely NOT racist by any stretch of the imagination.”
He continued in other posts.
“If you want to go after racists, go after racists,” he wrote. “If you want to be a language policeman, I suggest you find yourself in a George Orwell novel. When I try to get the teenagers in my school to stop using the word [racial slur], I only get laughed at.”
He has since offered an apology to those who were “sincerely offended” by his language. The insincerely offended are out of luck.
Akron schools have released a statement calling his behavior “unprofessional and unbecoming” and promise he will remain on leave until an “investigation” is complete. Meanwhile, local reporters have obtained his personnel file; the lengthy document outlines three official reprimands, including an accusation of choking a student, an accusation of throwing a chair, and an accusation of spitting on the floor in the classroom.
