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The Time I Got Called Racist for Teaching Middle Schoolers About Prison

4 min readOct 29, 2019

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Photo: Patrik Giardino/Getty Images

OOne morning, the principal of my school called me into her office. “Mr. Wright, I got a call from one of the parents,” she said. “She complained that you were promoting racism.”

As a Black man, it’s not exactly a usual occurrence to be accused of being racist — let alone as a teacher. The parent in question had a child in one of my most challenging periods that year, a group of eighth graders. The majority of the students were male and Black; the student who complained wasn’t.

In my eight years as an educator, I’ve been no stranger to challenging environments. I’ve worked in schools where 100% of students came from free- and reduced-lunch backgrounds, where students didn’t have running water, where gang life was embedded in the social environment of the city. None of it made a difference to my teaching; I believe that all students can learn and deserve a fair and even approach. I knew that not all the students I taught would be Black, and so I have always fought to maintain a reasonable balance between teaching what was most needed while avoiding bias in my teaching. I haven’t always succeeded — but up until…

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Solomon Hillfleet
Solomon Hillfleet

Written by Solomon Hillfleet

Avid reader, writer. Man of Alpha. Educator. Coach. Wisdom of Solomon. Follow me @samuelhwright.com