Despite what some people may try to tell you, what has happened in history does not stop affecting the present.
In fact, humans, as a society, actively and continuously build upon the situations and events that have unfolded in the past.
It bears reminding that these things did not happen for no reason, and its resolution does not necessarily mean we have stopped feeling its effects.
Instead reality means that what has happened in the past goes on to inform what is occurring in the present, both socially and politically.
This means it is important that our next generation learns about the past so that they can understand the power dynamics of the present.
That said, some sensitivity should be exercised in this area, especially when it comes to forcing racial minorities who have traditionally experienced oppression to relive a horrible power dynamic.
37-year-old Patricia Cummings, a white school teacher based in a Bronx school, should have known better than to do what she did.
History is something that can be pretty hard to swallow in school, especially since the education system is more interested in students simply being able to pass written exams.
In a well-meaning attempt to inject more relatability and fun into the subject, Cummings decided to get her students to participate in a roleplaying session.
This doesn’t sound like a problem, until you learn that she had allegedly humiliated the black kids in her class by forcing them to play as slaves.
As you can imagine, this is something that was incredibly insensitive to do.
There was no reason for her to specifically get her black students to relieve the conditions that their ancestors faced, while her white students otherwise got away scot-free.
Naturally, several students in her class complained about being mistreated and humiliated by the exercise.
She was initially cleared internally by the school of any misconduct, but media uproar regarding the incident revived the case.
This then resulted in the Department of Education launching an investigation into the incident, which ended with Cummings being fired.
Cummings, however, claimed that she had conducted the roleplay with no ill intent, and that only one of her students – and that student’s parent – had objected to the exercise when the idea had been brought up.
With the help of her attorney, Tom Liotti, Cummings has fired back against the Department, claiming that she is a victim of reverse racism.
She has already filed a lawsuit worth $120 million from where she resides in Suffolk County, but doesn’t plan to stop there.
She argues that her job termination and the criticism levelled against since her sacking has made her undesired and permanently unemployable, completely destroying her chance of making a living via the career path she has pursued all these years.
She also claims that she isn’t the only person that feels they have been poorly mistreated by the New York government, and is planning to create and file a $1 billion class-action case against a large number of defendants in the state government.
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