A Black eighth-grade student in Arlington County, Virginia, says his teacher had him play a game in which he picked cotton out of a bucket with his face.
Keisha Kirkland said her son returned home from Gunston Middle School last week and said, “Mom, you will not believe what game I played today.”
"He stumbled a couple of times trying to tell me, and I said, ‘Just spit it out, tell me,’” Kirkland said. “And he has this, like, grin on his face that's uncomfortable, and I said, ‘Tell me.’"
In his French class, Sidney Rousey said a substitute teacher filled a bucket with cotton and told him to pick it out with his face. The teacher called it a game, saying students would cover their noses in Vaseline and see how many cotton balls would stick when they dunked their heads in the bucket.
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“My mouth just dropped, and I said, ‘OK, why were you playing a game like this? Why did you play?’” Kirkland said. “And he said, ‘Because I felt like I had to.’"
Kirkland said her son is the only Black student in the classroom and felt uncomfortable. She went to the school to get answers.
In a statement to News4, an Arlington Public Schools spokesperson called Sidney’s experience “deeply disturbing” and “commends the student for coming forward,” going on to say APS will be “promptly revisiting and reviewing” these activities.
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"As a parent of three APS students, it brought me to tears. Literally,’" said Tia Alfred of the NAACP’s Arlington County branch.
“There should have been some type of accountability by now," she said.
But Sidney’s mother said it only got worse the next day for her son when he walked back into class with the same teacher.
“The teacher closes the door and says, ‘Sidney, so I'm a racist?’ In front of all of his peers," Kirkland said.
Sidney was pulled from the class and has been sitting in the school office during his French class since last week. Kirkland said the school is arranging for him to do an hour of virtual learning in the library during that time.
“We need to be heard, we need to be seen, and I don't think that anyone is willing to do that," Kirkland said.
An Arlington Public Schools spokesperson said the district does not support these activities and will take necessary and appropriate actions to address this incident.
