Michigan State Sen. Marty Knollenberg (R) made disparaging and extremely racist comments during a hearing Thursday in regards to academic performance among different demographic groups.
“You mention why these schools districts fail, and you mention economically disadvantaged and non-white population are contributors to that. And we can’t fix that. We can’t make an African-American white,” he said at the meeting. “That’s just, it is what it is.”
It wasn’t long before Knollenberg’s comment came under fire from the American Federation of Teachers.
“What Sen. Knollenberg said about struggling kids in schools is racist and a major step backwards in improving education for our children. If a child is struggling academically, it is not because of a problem inherent to their race or ethnicity,” David Hecker, president of the AFT Michigan chapter, which uploaded a video of the comments, said in a statement. “Research tells us what needs to be done and the absurd thought of changing a child’s race has nothing to do with any of it.”
Knollenberg has since said his comments were taken out of context — even adding he had an African-American employee.
“My passion is for improving education and making sure every single child gets a good education,” he said. “We should not have failing schools anywhere.”
Yeah…he’s full of sh*t. Watch him make his comment below and you’ll see it was perfectly IN context.
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